Britain's Cold War E-Book

Bob Clarke

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.' So said Winston Churchill in 1946. About to begin was Britain's most expensive and turbulent periods of military history. This is the story of Britain's Cold War, and it deals with all aspects of this chilling time when Britain could have been obliterated so easily by the unleashing of Russian Nuclear Weapons. The Cold War was like no other conflict yet experienced. It was more than a struggle between two superpowers, it was a war of ideologies, the Capitalistic West and the Communist East. The Cold War leached its way into every facet of British life to the extent it was not really considered a war at all. But a war it was. The period was punctuated by an arms race which pushed the world to the edge of destruction, as both East and West amassed arsenals of nuclear weapons far beyond what would be needed to destroy, quite literally, everything. So what part did Britain play in all this? Read on and find out!

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Protect

1 The Bomb

2 Air Defence

3 Airborne Early Warning

4 The Anti-aircraft Network

5 Ballistic Missile Early Warning System

6 ‘Gas – Gas – Gas’

7 Americans

8 Intelligence

Survive

9 Royal Observer Corps 139

10 ‘Civil Defence is Common Sense’

11 Bunker

12 The National Infrastructure

13 ‘You and Your Family’

14 Strategic Food Stockpile

15 ‘Mr Gorbachev – Tear Down this Wall’

Glossary

Selective Bibliography

Copyright

Acknowledgements

This book would not have come to fruition had it not been for the enthusiasm and expertise of many of my colleagues and friends, I would like to thank them all. Thanks are also extended to all the organisations, representatives and individuals who have allowed access to the many sites visited in the last year.

Individual thanks go to the following: Michael Parrish of the Kelvedon Hatch Museum and Rodney Siebert of the Hack Green Museum; Chris Walker of the North Wilts Military Survey; Roy Canham, Wiltshire County Archaeologist; Nick McCamley, author of Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers, who helped solve some of the finer details; Bill Baker of the Avon Fire Brigade, who allowed access to the refurbished ROC Group HQ at Lansdown, Bath; the Scarborough Evening News for the splendid pictures of Fylingdales; Mike Fuller for flying the USAF airfields in difficult conditions, Liz Wild for access to the Reading War Room; Don Todd and Keith Watson for access and stimulating discussion at Upper Heyford; Debbie Edmonds of English Heritage; Kelvin at Country & Metropolitan for access to Becca Hall; Tony Peach and his band of merry Royal Observer Corps members – long may they keep the flag flying!; Pete Sherburne and Jim Askew for their advice on military matters; Simon Hailwood, Senior EPO for South Gloucestershire Council; Michelle Dean, Community Safety Officer for West Oxfordshire District Council, and John Kelly, Oxford EPO; Erith Demolition for allowing access to the GCHQ Oakley site; and the owners of all those sites in the middle of nowhere who struggled to understand why I found concrete so interesting, but allowed me to photograph them anyway.

And last but by no means least, thanks go to my good friend and colleague Colin Kirby for putting up with my frequent absences during one of QinetiQ Archaeology’s biggest projects; Barry Huntingford, who has met the task of reading the draft text with good humour and made the story of Britain’s Cold War legible; John and Christine Clarke for help with locating the Yorkshire sites and pictures; Campbell McCutcheon of Tempus Publishing Ltd for giving me the opportunity to put my thoughts down on paper; and finally Sarah and the kids who live in a house full to the roof with archaeology including now artefacts from the Cold War. A big thank you to everyone. If I have forgotten anyone, and that’s highly likely, I apologise profusely. Any errors are ultimately my responsibility.

Preface

My Cold War

Growing up in Scarborough hardly sounds like the front line, but that was the point of the Cold War, it had the potential to include everybody. Very few ‘traditional’ front lines actually existed with the obvious exceptions of the Berlin Wall and the 38th parallel and, of course, the Iron Curtain. Almost every area of Britain had one site or another which was deemed to be a potential target, and my part of the world was no exception. So, what was my Cold War? Well I was a child of the ‘60s with all the usual things a young lad wanted: a train set, Dinky toys, Thunderbirds (in fact anything Gerry Anderson!) and of course Airfix kits. By the mid-’70s I had developed more than a passing interest in history, aircraft and war films; many of my models were eventually to become war casualties!

On moving to Grahame Secondary School on the outskirts of the town I came into contact with a number of ‘like-minded’ individuals, joined the 739 Sqn Air Cadets and never looked back. From my house I could see RAF Staxton Wold to the south and Irton Moor listening post, known locally as the wireless station, to the north. Just up the road was the North Yorkshire Moors and situated prominently on it were ‘the Golf Balls’, so, as you can see, I was sitting right in the middle of some prime military targets.

Being a member of the Air Cadets opened up many of these sites as we witnessed first hand the Nation’s Defences. I still vividly remember our summer camp to RAF West Raynham in 1978, home of the impressive Bloodhounds. I even got to ‘target’ a blip on the radar with the predictable shout, ‘Don’t push that one !’, from the launch crew after I had done it, all to much hysterics. But we were the exception to the rule; nobody else seemed to acknowledge the fact that we were at war. This was one of the interesting phenomena of the Cold War, that it was treated by most as background noise to their everyday lives. I may be wrong but I cannot recall my parents ever talking about anything which we now see as significant, even if the IRA atrocities did feature occasionally, but apart from that life just ticked along.

Life was, however, punctuated by many low flying jets; the Vale of York was a designated flying area and we got the lot. Over the years the procession was as good as any air tattoo you could see today. Formations of Vulcans, occasionally four deep, Lightnings practising dog fights and even the prototype Tornado with its Phantom and Buccaneer escorts. The Americans were also much in evidence, F-111s often whipped down the Vale and the agile A-10s could always be relied on to put up a good display, especially for a group of lads on a country lane on their bikes. I can still feel the excitement of the display and the customary salute signing off the spectacle. We slept safe in our beds.

Many of us from 739 joined the services in the early 1980s at the height of the ‘Doom Boom’, not to fight the Warsaw Pact or become part of NATO but to have a career. Scarborough didn’t offer much so we moved out. Pilots, commandos, radar specialists, engineers, we covered the whole spectrum. I have to say, from a personal perspective, ten years in the RAF did not give the impression we were at war with a superpower. Granted it was in the background and the occasional exercise or Tacival brought into sharp perspective the NBC threat but the main problem was home-grown terrorism. By the time I arrived at St Athan, my last posting, Spetsnas was just a distant memory, then the wall came down and everything changed, including my career. I left the RAF and went into civil aviation.

The events across Europe rekindled my interest in history; I had just witnessed one of the most significant periods of the twentieth century coming to an end. My wife and I spent the next two years visiting most of Eastern Europe; I needed to know what it had all been about. What we discovered was a world of second bests; by the time we got to Moscow the whole country was pretty much upside down. As we looked at Lenin, still guarded around the clock in his empty mausoleum, my mind wandered back to all those pictures of queuing Russians waiting in the snow for a glimpse of his hallowed remains. The world had indeed changed.

In 1994 two major events happened in my life: I became a father and I picked up a contract at Boscombe Down, six week’s worth and I’m still there now! Two years later I had become a qualified archaeologist (something I had started years earlier) and part of the archaeological team on site. Since then I have investigated, with my colleague Colin Kirby, many aspects of Boscombe Down’s archaeology, including the part it played in the Cold War. This has developed into a bit of an obsession, one that appears here in print as my view of the Cold War and Britain’s part in it.

Introduction

The Cold War was like no other conflict yet experienced. It was more than a struggle between two superpowers, it was a war of ideologies, the capitalist West and the communist East. The Cold War leached its way into every facet of British life to the extent that it was not really considered a war at all. But a war it was; thousands died over the period 1945–1991 as the superpowers fought for supremacy, often by proxy, in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Angola and the Horn of Africa. Oppression also accounted for many lives in the uprisings in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and those trying to cross the Berlin Wall. The period was punctuated by an arms race which pushed the world to the edge of destruction, as both East and West amassed arsenals of nuclear weapons far beyond what would be needed to destroy, quite literally, everything. So what part did Britain play in all this?

Britain had come out of the Second World War a broken country, the Empire had been signed away and most of the financial reserves spent on equipment that was now redundant; the only consolation was that it had been on the winning side, part of the ‘big three’. By the mid-1950s, Britain had become more entrenched in the NATO alliance, but the obsession with ‘the bomb’ meant that it was running up a huge debt in an attempt to stay at the world top table. The Cold War from the United Kingdom’s point of view can be seen as a two-sided story, one of ‘Protect’ and ‘Survive’, to use the title of the famous public information leaflet from the late 1970s. In this book, international events are used as a backdrop for each chapter, demonstrating that the British Cold War was almost totally driven by reaction to external situations.

Protect

The story of how the Government went about protecting the United Kingdom from Soviet attack encompasses some of the most monumental periods of defence design. The development of radar was taken to new heights, as was the development of aircraft and submarines, but it was never a smooth ride. Many projects fell by the wayside or were out of date before they were finished; the Rotor project from the 1950s or the Blue Streak missile stand as testament to that. But there were successes, the V-force and Bloodhound missile for instance. The first part of this book will consider the defence story of Britain’s Cold War, looking at the development of the independent deterrent, radar, including Airborne Early Warning and the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System at RAF Fylingdales. A little-explored subject, chemical and biological warfare, is also investigated, but this and other defence-related subjects are still difficult to research due to information restrictions. American involvement also drove certain aspects of Britain’s Cold War, the most controversial being the locating of nuclear forces such as Thor missiles, B-47 and later F-111 bombers, and ground-launched Cruise missiles at Greenham Common and Molesworth. Popularly a period of spies and subversion, one aspect of the Government’s ‘dirty-tricks’ department, GCHQ, will also be discussed here.

Survive

How was the British population prepared for nuclear war? Early in the conflict it was recognised that public involvement would be essential if anyone was to survive a nuclear exchange; Civil Defence and the Royal Observer Corps were both manifestations of this. However, when in 1952 the world went thermonuclear, the futility of civil protection on a large scale became apparent and was steadily run down and by the 1970s it was clear the population would be left to their own devices. The story of the Government’s own survival was in stark contrast to this and included some of the most spectacularly protected structures in the Western world. Unfortunately the plans for reinstating water, gas and electricity were less well thought out, comprising a collection of ad hoc directives that would have clearly collapsed in the first instance. The second part of this book is dedicated to exploring the organisations and directives that were intended to ensure our survival after the nuclear holocaust. Using contemporary documentation it has become increasingly apparent that even the best-laid plans have flaws, and with regards to the British population they were rather large ones.

Code Names

Defence, by its very nature is a closed, secretive world. Research and development is at the core of that world and accordingly often has the highest security classification. However, in the past it has been possible to deduce what type of project is under way by the project code given. This was especially the case with radar throughout the Second World War, when Professor R.V. Jones, part of British Scientific Intelligence, deduced many German programmes using the code name. After the war the Ministry of Supply devised a system that came to be known as the ‘Rainbow Codes’ to cover the precise details of the many defence projects then under way. The two-unit code comprised a colour followed by a noun, neither relating to the project in any way.

Other countries used a multitude of code types for projects and tests, some of which did give the game away. For instance the two American nuclear shots, carried out at Eniwetok Atoll in late 1952, gave more than a hint of what was to come. Known as the Ivy series, the first, Ivy King, was a kiloton yield weapon whilst Ivy Mike became the world’s first megaton range device. British codes, however, were somewhat more obscure. Radar projects alone demonstrate the bewildering array of permutations available: Blue Joker, Green Garlic, Indigo Corkscrew, Orange Poodle and Yellow River, to name but a few. By the 1960s this method had been replaced, as indeed had the Ministry for Supply, with a two-letter three-number system, such as WE-177, the free-fall nuclear bomb, or JP-233, the runway denial package developed for Tornado.

Iron Curtain

At the end of the Second World War Germany was divided into four military zones controlled by America, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. Berlin was also partitioned in a similar way giving the ‘big four’ control of the German capital. This had been partially agreed at Yalta, on the Black Sea, in February 1945, and finalised at Potsdam in July that same year. But this outwardly apparent agreement was built on shaky ground, with issues throughout the late 1930s and war years setting up a political climate of mistrust and resentment between East and West, a climate that would prevail until the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.

The Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression pact with Germany prior to the invasion of Poland and actively participated in the annexation of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. As the German Army marched into Poland in 1939 Stalin’s troops entered from the east, taking territory up to the Brest–Litovsk treaty line. This boundary had been set by agreement between Germany and Russia in late 1917, as the Bolsheviks pulled what was left of their army out of the First World War. Now Poland was removed from the map as it was absorbed into the Empires of the two unlikely bedfellows. When, in 1941, the German Army invaded Russia, an uneasy alliance was forged between West and East in the fight against Fascism. By the end of the conflict a new world order had emerged, one dominated by the two ‘superpowers’. As the process of rebuilding Europe gathered pace the old political systems gave way to more liberal and unrestrictive governments, spurred on mainly by the champion of democracy – America. However, Stalin had other plans and pursued a policy of subversion, hampering any chance of democratic government in the countries he had ‘liberated’.

It became increasingly clear through 1946 that the Soviet Union intended to keep control of as much of Europe as it could. Stalin had, from 1942, demanded the Anglo–America alliance open a second front to ease pressure on the Red Army; this did not happen until D-Day in June 1944. Moscow considered this as an attempt to weaken the Soviets for possible attack once Germany had been defeated. Now with most of Eastern Europe under Soviet control Stalin had a buffer in place that protected the Russian borders. The main problem was that Europe’s traditional political drivers, France, Germany, Italy and to a lesser extent Britain, had collapsed, creating a power vacuum. Even with tens of thousands of American troops in Europe the chance of force being used to remove Soviet troops was unlikely, especially since any fight would not be on Russian soil.

Poland now signalled the problems that were to come. The Red Army had installed a communist administration in Lublin in 1944, intending to run the country on a pro-Soviet footing after the war. This was in direct opposition to the requests by the Polish Government in Exile for autonomy. Moscow’s intentions became clear when, in August 1944, the Warsaw uprising saw Freedom Fighters and the Resistance fight for two months with the German Army, the Red Army refusing to advance in support of the Poles and the uprising being crushed, removing the majority of groups who would oppose Soviet rule. By the end of the Second World War Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia along with the Baltic States, Poland and parts of Germany were under the influence of communist-orientated groups, the majority directly influenced by Moscow. Britain had entered the conflict in 1939 to stop Central Europe being dominated by one power; after the collapse of the Third Reich the Soviet Union did just that.

The withdrawal of American troops from Europe, intended to be complete by 1947, now started to cause alarm. Churchill considered, rightly, that Britain and indeed Western Europe now faced a new enemy. In a telegram on 12 May 1945 he warned Truman of the problems now facing the post-war Continent. This was the first time Churchill was to use the ‘Iron Curtain’ phrase, suggesting Moscow could very well be deciding the fate of Europe behind it. The following year at a lecture at Fulton in Missouri Churchill exposed the danger publicly:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.

Winston Churchill, 5 March 1946

Many thought Churchill, by now out of office, was over-exaggerating the situation, but events throughout 1947 were to indicate otherwise.

Britain had, since 1944, been attempting to defeat a communist guerrilla uprising against the Greek royalist government. Also, India and Palestine were exerting large financial penalties on the Government’s already poor reserves. By early 1947 Britain admitted to Washington it could no longer maintain its imperial position, the money was just not there. On 12 March Truman went before Congress and demanded financial support for Greece and Turkey, citing a major communist advance in the Mediterranean if both countries were left to their own devices. By the end of the year this had become the ‘Marshall Plan’, encompassing many other bankrupt European countries. Throughout 1947 Moscow reaffirmed its grip on the ‘liberated’ Eastern European states. Rather than demobilise troops and remove equipment from the occupied countries, Stalin now set about installing communist governments committed to Moscow, turning many into police states and aligning economic policies and reform with those of Russia. The rest of the world could only speculate at the motives, but many considered them to be a prelude to Russian advancement into the rest of Europe. By the end of the year Churchill’s Iron Curtain was almost impenetrable. The Cold War had arrived.

Protect v.t. Keep Safe, defend, guard, (person or thing from or against danger, injury, etc.). Oxford Dictionary

one

The Bomb

From the end of the Second World War Britain embarked on a number of expensive defence projects, but none were as technically difficult or controversial as the production of nuclear weapons. This came at a time when the country was bankrupt and the United States was embarking on a policy of ‘non-proliferation’, so why did it happen? It would appear that Britain’s obsession with the ‘bomb’ had everything to do with world power status, something that was dwindling away as the Empire slowly disintegrated. To gain membership to the nuclear club a number of highly complicated obstacles had to be jumped, made all the more difficult for Britain since there was no help from across the Atlantic. However, these obstacles were cleared and Britain developed both a fission and fusion capability by 1957, becoming the third country to do so. This chapter will follow those political events that forced independent development of both warheads and describe the weapons in which they were employed. Also described are the delivery systems the British jointly operated or purchased from America.

Trinity

On 16 July 1945 the world entered a new and dangerous age, the testing of the first atomic device, Trinity. The Los Alamos team, headed by General Leslie Richard Groves and scientist Robert Oppenheimer, provided the United States with the power of life or death over any chosen city. Churchill was consulted on the possible use of the weapon as had been agreed at the 1943 Quebec Conference and on 4 July he gave it his formal blessing. At the Potsdam Conference, in Berlin, following the afternoon meeting on 24 July, Truman explained to Stalin and Molotov that the Americans were in possession of a new and powerful explosive. Stalin was unimpressed, suggesting it be used as soon as possible, convincing Truman that the USSR did not fully comprehend the situation; nothing could have been further from the truth.

The Soviet Union had pledged to declare war on Japan on 15 August 1945, and whilst it was recognised this would speed up capitulation, it would also complicate post-war sovereignty issues. The Russians had already reneged on agreements made regarding the future of Poland and the Baltic States, and a major Soviet influence in Japan would be an unacceptable price to pay for their involvement. Moreover, an American invasion of the Japanese mainland had been scheduled for 1 November 1945, but casualty estimates ranged from 40,000 to one million men; this too was clearly unacceptable. With the bomb America now had the power to finish Japan before Stalin advanced too far and without major loss of Allied life. Truman had only one option, however distasteful – use of the atomic weapon was authorised.

On 6 August, ‘Little Boy’ razed the town of Hiroshima to the ground. The explosion, at around 600m and with the force of 13,000 tonnes of TNT, killed an estimated 100,000 civilians immediately; many more thousands would die in the ensuing months and years from the effects of radiation poisoning. Just two days later Stalin declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria, conscious that Hiroshima could well signal the end of hostilities and his aspirations for a foothold in the Pacific. On 9 August ‘Fat Man’ was released over Nagasaki adding another 80,000 dead and injuring at least 60,000. Convinced there was no defence against this deadly new weapon, the Emperor of Japan indicated his intention to surrender on the 10 August and terms were signed four days later.

During the Potsdam Conference Churchill was voted out of office, being replaced by Clement Attlee. Difficulties for the British were now on the horizon. The former American President, Roosevelt, had agreed to collaborate with Great Britain on a number of projects, including nuclear weapons. Unfortunately this had been a verbal arrangement with Churchill. Now both men were gone and with them, as far as Washington was concerned, went any secret wartime agreement, especially those that had not passed before Congress or the Department of State.

The Manhattan Project had been shrouded in secrecy. Yet this had not stopped security breaches and in 1946 a major Russian spy was uncovered, Alan Nunn May; unfortunately he was a British scientist, and he would not be the last. It transpired that Stalin had received practically all the information needed to start his own programme a clear month before the Trinity detonation. The discovery of espionage so close to the United States nuclear project was to damage British chances of information and co-operation throughout the late 1940s and early ‘50s.

Many in Truman’s administration displayed open contempt for what they considered to be shoddy security services, pointing the finger at MI5 and MI6, but spies were not the end of the story. By 1 August 1946 Britain had been sidelined by the McMahon Act, which placed nuclear development under the control of the Joint Atomic Energy Committees. More importantly for the British the McMahon Act halted all co-operation and information exchanges; the door had been firmly closed in Britain’s face.

As American weapon production increased, more demand was placed on the limited natural resources available, especially uranium. One of the major producers was the Belgian Congo, and Britain’s access to this resource was politically better than that of the Americans; the Joint Atomic Energy Committees (JAEC) were outraged. After denying the British programme any help it now looked like America would now have to rely on them for natural uranium ore. And if this wasn’t bad enough the British had one more hurdle for the Americans to clear. They held a veto over using atomic weapons against foreign countries. This had been agreed between Churchill and Roosevelt in 1943, becoming known as the Quebec Agreement, and effectively allowed one country the right to veto the other using atomic weapons. Again the JAEC had no idea such an agreement existed as it had not passed through Congress. Now it seemed America would also need permission to use her weapons; clearly Washington needed to act.

The problems with uranium would be hard to address but the Quebec Agreement, an unratified treaty between past leaders, was much easier to deal with. Washington decided that a technology package built within the Marshall Plan should include the resumption of co-operation between the two countries, as long as Britain gave up its veto. Britain readily agreed to the package but in the event received little information, and certainly none that would help the weapons programme. On 29 August 1949 the Soviet Union successfully detonated its first atomic device a clear two years before Western predictions. Politicians in the West started talking again; clearly Britain now warranted help if it was to make a stance against perceived Russian aggression. But this was not to be, as the talks collapsed dramatically when in February 1950 Klaus Fuchs, a scientist who had worked on the Manhattan and other nuclear projects, was exposed as a Russian spy. America’s security suspicions were confirmed: how could any sensitive material be shared if it could be passed straight to Soviet controllers? The talks were shelved indefinitely. Britain would now have to develop its own weapon if the world position it so coveted was to be maintained.

British Genesis

The architect of the British nuclear programme was undoubtedly William, later Lord, Penney. Penney was part of the British Mission at Los Alamos and had been a lynchpin in the development of the first atomic devices. It has been internationally recognised that the British team shaved almost a year off the programme. On returning to the United Kingdom Penney was invited to design a British atomic bomb programme, being appointed Chief Superintendent Armament Research in 1946. Sites at Harwell under Dr John Cockcroft and Risley under Christopher Hinton were opened late that year. January 1947 saw the British Government authorise the development of the first nuclear weapon and in June of that year the design process started at Fort Halstead under the direction of Penney. The department was given the title High Explosive Research (HER). However, it was soon clear that Fort Halstead was not the ideal site for developing the weapons programme and in 1950 the former RAF airfield at Aldermaston was selected to house the new HER laboratories. In 1952 it was officially named the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE).

By the beginning of 1952 Britain was looking for somewhere to test the first nuclear device, and an American test range seemed the obvious choice. But representations to Washington requesting the use of a Pacific test site fell on deaf ears. The administration rejected the idea, and certainly didn’t put the request before Congress for fear of a riot; the Fuchs affair was still fresh in the mind of many. However, the Australians were far more receptive and allowed the use of one of the Monte Bello islands, starting a long association with Australia and the British nuclear weapons programme. Penney remarked at the time, ‘If the Australians are not willing to let us do further trials in Australia, I do not know where we would go’; luckily this was not to be. The first test was a logistical nightmare, optimistically scheduled for October 1952. Some of the major contractors were having major difficulties producing equip-ment to such a tight schedule. The high explosives needed for the compression system were being produced by the Woolwich Arsenal and would be ready on time. But problems were being experienced producing enough plutonium to mould the test device’s core. The Windscale site in Cumbria had been built specifically to produce weapons-grade plutonium, its two reactors going critical in 1951, but this left little time to produce the required amount of material for the test shot.

Hurricane, Britain’s first atomic detonation. (© Crown Copyright)

The device minus its plutonium core was loaded into a redundant River Class frigate, HMS Plym, and shipped under escort to the test site in June 1952. Windscale managed to produce just enough plutonium to be shaped and the core was flown out to the test site with a day to spare. HMS Plym was moored in Main Bay close to Trimouille Island where the plutonium core was fitted to the device; operation Hurricane was ready. At 9.30 a.m. local time Britain stepped onto the nuclear stage.

Super

As the development of the fission weapons moved on apace throughout the 1940s, a group of American scientists were also considering the conclusions of an Englishman, Geoffrey Atkinson, working in Gottingen in 1927. He had theorised that solar energy could be created through the fusion of light-weight atoms. By the mid-1930s isotopes of deuterium or tritium appeared to be likely candidates. This work was not wasted on members of the Los Alamos team and by 1942 Edward Teller was considering the possibility of making the theory work; the difference was he would eventually attract the financial backing of the United States Government. Initially the concept of the fusion device had been dismissed as too complicated and expensive, especially since to trigger such a bomb successfully required an extremely efficient detonator. But the USSR’s successful detonation of an atom bomb on 29 August 1949 set the ball rolling for development of the ‘Super’, a thermonuclear device.

Things didn’t run smoothly at first. Requests by both Congress and the Military as to how long it would take to develop such a weapon were met with dismay by the majority of the scientific community. Practicalities suggested that the size of such a weapon would make it undeliverable. Also, tests were now being conducted with high-yield fission devices, around 500kt, which would more than do the job if used. Further, Rabi and Fermi, part of the lead A-bomb team, suggested such a weapon ‘was wrong on fundamental ethical principles’. Truman, however, was swung by the argument that the Russians would develop a thermonuclear device and Washington could not stand back and allow them to take the lead. A Soviet development programme was a certainty, not least because Klaus Fuchs, the spy at the centre of the A-bomb, had also worked for a time in 1946 with fusion theory. On 31 January 1950 Truman, after a ten-minute meeting with advocates of the device, approved the development of the thermonuclear weapon.

Physicist Teller and mathematician Stanislaw Ulam soon came up with the idea of a primary and secondary charge, basically an A-bomb to set off an H-bomb. By 1951 Teller had devised the ‘sparkplug’, the ultra-efficient burn of nuclear material had been discovered. Put simply, a cylindrical mass of thermonuclear material, deuterium, has a sub-critical stick positioned down the centre. The shockwave from the primary detonation then converges on the centre of the cylindrical mass. As it reaches the centre the wave decelerates, creating heat. This turns the plutonium stick super-critical, causing it to explode and forcing a shock wave outwards, pushing against the implosion. Equilibrium between both waves, if reached within the deuterium fuel, would cause a megaton-yield explosion. Radiation implosion had been discovered and the stage was now set for a new period of test and development. It would take the British team four long years to reach this stage.

Testing of the first megaton-yield thermonuclear device proved to be a logistical nightmare. The secondary device was to contain liquid deuterium with a boiling point of 23.5 Kelvin and to stop it vaporising prematurely a large cryogenic plant had to be built. The final device weighed in at 82 tonnes and was housed, along with the cooling plant and other test equipment in a four-storey-high ‘shot house’, which could have been quite easily used to park aircraft. Over 500 monitoring stations were established and around 11,000 personnel had to be billeted for the duration of the tests. On 1 November 1952 at 07:14 ‘Ivy Mike’ detonated with a yield of 10.4 megatons. The small island of Elugelab at Eniwetok Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands, was replaced by a mile-wide crater 200ft deep. The Soviet Union tested an air-deliverable weapon just nine months later and by 1955 both sides had true thermonuclear devices. Churchill was later prompted to describe the situation as the ‘delicate balance of terror’.

Grapple

All Britain could do as both superpowers ran to the thermonuclear finish line was spectate; clearly if it was to remain a major player on the world stage something would have to be done. In 1954 it was decided that once again Britain would have to go it alone, developing a totally indigenous hydrogen bomb. Many in the Government had mixed feelings, but this did not deter Churchill from approving the plan, even at a projected cost of £10 million. Ironically this was ultimately to lead to closer ties with the United States, form the backbone of the 1957 Defence White Paper, which was so detrimental to British Air Defence, and see the formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

The Grapple series of atmospheric tests, between 1957 and 1958, at Christmas Island and Malden Island in the Pacific, ushered the United Kingdom into the thermonuclear age. However, more importantly they were used to demonstrate Britain’s capability to the world before an expected moratorium on atmospheric tests came into force. The first of a number of two-stage designs, ‘Short Granite’ was dropped by Vickers Valiant XD818, piloted by Wing Commander Ken Hubbard, on 15 May 1957 at Malden. The device, carried in a Blue Danube aerodynamic fairing, achieved a yield of around 300kt, well below the intended 1-megaton yield for one ton in weight; but the concept had been proven, and development continued. Incidentally, Valiant XD818 is now the only surviving complete example of its type and currently resides at the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon.

The nuclear stores at Upper Heyford. Special weapons were stored here from the 1950s through to the signing of the INF treaty in 1988.

By October 1957 the build-up for additional tests at Christmas Island were well under way. Equipment for the new shot ‘Grapple X’ was being flown out in a number of chartered Australian aircraft, whilst personnel were flown, this time on the newly acquired de Havilland Comet, out to Edinburgh Field, just outside Adelaide, before being ferried to Christmas Island in rather older Hastings transports. On 28 October an instrumented inert bomb was dropped over the island as part of a full scientific rehearsal. Weather delays put the live drop back three days, but on 8 November 1957 Grapple X got the green light. At 8:45 Valiant XD824, piloted by Squadron Leader B. Millet, dropped Britain’s first true thermonuclear device, achieving a yield of 1.8 megatons. By April 1958, the largest ever British test, ‘Grapple Y’, achieved a yield of 3 megatons. America started to take notice.

Moratorium and Membership

Whilst the technological prowess of the United States, Soviet Union and, later, United Kingdom became self evident there were many who considered the escalation of nuclear testing to be just as dangerous as the weapons themselves. As early as 1954 the effects of fallout were overtaking the test debate, especially as massive amounts of irradiated material was now being introduced into the atmosphere. One salient example was the crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon, caught in the fallout of the ‘Bravo’ 15-megaton shot. Twenty-three sailors suffered radiation poisoning culminating in the death of one crew member. World opinion was gathering pace as first, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, closely followed by Pope Pius XII and Albert Einstein, called for a cessation of testing. Rather surprisingly, by 1955 even the Russians were voicing concerns over the amount of testing being carried out. Clearly a test ban at this time was in the Soviet Union’s interests. The British, having announced their intention to develop the H-bomb, would need to prove the device before they were accepted as a true world power. If a cessation of atmospheric testing could be pushed through then Britain would be unable to complete the development; especially important since Russia would be the ultimate target of the device. Whilst pressure mounted the tests went on.

1957 proved a turning point in nuclear development and control; forty-two atmospheric tests, including the British ‘Grapple’ series, were undertaken that year, introducing even more deadly isotopes into the atmosphere. Steadily growing opposition was now being voiced from a scientific as well as moral standpoint, including Albert Schweitzer, the famous doctor and theorist, who warned of the genetic effects to human development of continued testing. In Britain a rising tide of public concern began coagulating into organised demonstrations spurred on by three major events. The 1957 Defence White Paper called for ‘massive retaliation’ if Britain was attacked and the doctrine sent a shockwave through both Parliament and the public. Britain’s newfound thermonuclear position appeared to make the country even more of a target rather than acting as a deterrent. Finally the safety of the nuclear industry was called into question with a major radiation leak from the plutonium plant at Windscale in October. Macmillan covered the leaks up until it was realised that milk over a large area was contaminated, forcing widespread milk bans. The nuclear genie was now well and truly out of the bottle.

The beginning of 1958 saw the formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) including the first Easter march to Aldermaston from Trafalgar Square, attended by thousands. A shift in American nuclear policy also allowed the United Kingdom, by mid-1958, to fully support a cessation of tests. The Grapple shots were now complete, ensuring Britain remained at the big table and had the thermonuclear kudos to back it up. But more importantly, Eisenhower, recognising the potential of the United Kingdom’s development programme, had amended the 1954 Atomic Energy Act in Britain’s favour. Harold Macmillan, heading the Government from January 1957, needed, after his predecessor’s disastrous Suez campaign, some form of American support, especially if a new US missile system (discussed later) was to be deployed in Britain. Macmillan recognised that some form of ‘appeasement’ towards the Americans could do no harm and in the long term Britain would see the benefits. On 3 July 1958 Eisenhower signed the ‘Agreement for Co-operation on the uses of Atomic energy for Mutual Defence Purposes’ (ACMDP). The door that was so unceremoniously shut by the McMahon Act in 1946 was finally re-opened. Internationally, in October Khrushchev and Eisenhower agreed on an informal moratorium on testing which, of course, Britain would also observe.

Throughout 1959 Washington looked for ways to verify a potential test ban, primarily through inspection teams, but the Kremlin favoured self-regulation. Khrushchev was concerned that American or NATO inspectors ‘would have discovered that we were in a relatively weak position, and that realisation might have encouraged them to attack us’, he noted later. Khrushchev proposed that any inspection would need a unanimous vote from all signatories, however each would also possess a veto; Eisenhower saw the proposal as unworkable and the discussions stalled. When talks resumed in April 1959 the scope of the proposal had been altered, giving Khrushchev the opportunity to give up the veto. Underground tests were also not included in the proposals, giving all sides the chance to silence opposition on atmospheric testing whilst carrying on with development. Macmillan’s support for the ban was vindicated as the ACMDP agreement opened up the Nevada nuclear test site to Britain, and by 1962 tests for a new air-deliverable bomb, ultimately to become the WE-77 series, were under way at the facility.

Paris

In February 1960 the nuclear club gained another member when the French conducted its first shot in Algeria. Ironically, it was proposed to sign the Test Ban Treaty at the Paris summit in May that year, but with agreement within reach, the talks dramatically collapsed before they had even started. On the most hallowed day in the Soviet calendar an American CIA-operated U-2 aircraft took off from Pakistan on a reconnaissance mission. Unfortunately for the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, and the outgoing Eisenhower, the aircraft suffered a technical malfunction forcing Powers to fly lower than normal. A surface-to-air missile battery shot the U-2 down. After initially denying the flight, Eisenhower was forced to admit American responsibility. No apology was forthcoming so Khrushchev abandoned the Paris summit.

Testing now resumed. On 30 October 1961 the Soviet Union detonated the world’s biggest weapon; at 58 megatons the atmospheric burst was the equivalent of all the ordnance used in the Second World War. Sabre rattling now started apace. Concern over the tests grew around the world, as it was determined that the continued test shots were releasing strontium-90 into the environment. Scientists from the newly formed pressure group ‘Physicians for Social Responsibility’ documented the element in the teeth of children across the world. And if this wasn’t enough, a new and more deadly situation was to unfold, which would ultimately heat up the Cold War almost to melting point – Cuba.

The possibility of all out nuclear war over Cuba reached its peak in late October 1962 when it looked increasingly like an American invasion of the island would be undertaken. In the end a naval blockade appeared more favourable, at least giving Kennedy more options; but Khrushchev had authorised the Soviet Commander in Cuba to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary. On 22 October President Kennedy appeared on national television exposing the threat posed by Soviet missiles in Cuba, the military went to DEFCON 3 and the world held its breath. By Saturday 27 October it was make or break. Luckily an agreement was reached with the Soviets involving the removal of missiles from Cuba, whilst the Americans would remove its Jupiter missiles currently based in Turkey. This would not happen immediately, as America intended to save face, and the arrangement was kept secret for many years.

All sides were visibly shaken by the ordeal and unsurprisingly negotiators were back at the table by June 1963, at the invitation of Khrushchev. Agreement was finally reached that year and the ‘Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, Outer Space and Under Water’ was signed in Moscow on 5 August. This agreement was more involved with the proliferation of weapons than trying to completely ban them as Britain, America and Russia already had all the information they needed to develop their arsenals. Also the ACMDP agreement of 1958 between Britain and America had given British scientists the opportunity to exchange information with their US counterparts. Warheads under development would, from now on, be carried out below ground at the Nevada site; Britain’s last test, ‘Bristol’, culminated twenty-five shots over a twenty-nine-year period.

Gravity Weapons

The British nuclear development programme produced two fission devices that were capable of being air delivered, Blue Danube and Red Beard, the latter being a ‘true’ weapon. Blue Danube gave Britain the credibility of being a nuclear power with a deliverable, if cumbersome, device. However, Red Beard allowed Britain to achieve global status, deploying the weapon with both the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. Two fusion bombs were built in the late 1950s, Violet Club and Yellow Sun, replacing the two fission devices with the Royal Air Force, but the Navy arsenal continued with Red Beard until its eventual replacement in 1972 by the WE-177. This compact free-fall weapon continued in service with both the RN and RAF until well after the Cold War. Free-fall bombs are unpowered devices delivered by air and, in the case of nuclear weapons, have a retarding system, such as a small parachute, slowing the bomb’s decent and allowing the aircraft time to escape the resultant blast.

Blue Danube

Blue Danube was Britain’s first operational nuclear weapon, coming into service in 1953. It carried a physics package very similar to that used in Operation Hurricane with a nominal 10-kiloton yield utilising an implosion device. Once placed within an aerodynamic fairing the free-fall bomb was 7.5m long, 1.5m in diameter and weighed just over 4,500kg. In fact the weapon was so big that retractable tail fins were fitted so that the Vickers Valiant had ground clearance for take-off. Once the bomb had cleared the aircraft the fins were extended by a pressurised gas system, mounted in the tail fairing. A number of other devices were also carried on board, designed for any eventuality, and all pushing the weight and size of the device up. A parachute retardation system allowed the drop aircraft time to vacate the area. Detonation was initiated through a radar-operated height trigger but it also carried a barostatic and timer mechanism in case of radar jamming or failure. As a last resort the device could be detonated on impact by a series of inertia switches. As an additional safety measure the plutonium/u-235 core was only inserted into the physics package during flight, primarily in case of crashing during take-off.

With the introduction of the new weapon came issues with storage and maintenance. Nuclear warheads are complex and require almost constant monitoring if they are to remain serviceable and effective. Storage facilities were built at two existing sites, Faldingworth, Lincolnshire and Barnham, Suffolk, to maintain Blue Danube and act as distribution centres in times of crisis. As the all-up weight of the bomber fleet increased, due to weapons, fuel and the introduction of the ‘V’ force, runways now had to be capable of carrying an aircraft weighing up to 90 tonnes. Upgrades to ten existing airfields were also carried out providing ‘Class 1’ bomber bases with runways up to 2,700m long and 60m wide for the new nuclear force. From 1958 a network of dispersal sites was also developed; aircraft would be fully armed and then dispersed around the country, moving them away from what were considered to be ‘prime target’ airfields. These included Boscombe Down, Leeming, Filton and Ballykelly.

Drops were carried out with dummy Blue Danubes at AWRE Orfordness, establishing the ballistic capabilities of the weapon. Naturally, this was not without its problems. The very first test drop from a modified Valiant refused to release from the bomb rack, the bomb bay doors were closed and the aircraft returned to base. On arrival the bay doors were opened for the ‘after flight’ inspection whereupon the bomb promptly fell out onto the concrete! Luckily this casing was full of ballast, but a live Blue Danube complete with inertia switches may not have been so forgiving. Any live bomb-release problems from then on necessitated ditching the aircraft. The first operational test drop was delivered by a Valiant on 11 October 1956 as part of Operation Buffalo at Maralinga, Western Australia, with a nominal yield of 3 kilotons. Blue Danube was not built in large quantities and, whilst giving Britain its own capability, should be seen as more of a development vehicle for future research. It was withdrawn from service in 1962, being replaced by the more compact, lighter, Red Beard.

The V-Force. Victor, Valiant and Vulcan, Britain’s independent deterrent.

Red Beard

Whilst still a free-fall weapon, Red Beard was far more versatile than its predecessor. The detonation concept was very similar to Blue Danube, but the introduction of a far more effective implosion device allowed for a smaller physics package. This improvement allowed the outer fairing to be scaled down to a more conventional size, 3.3m long, 90cm in diameter and weighing 907kg. The tactical advantages were obvious. Here was a bomb that could be carried by a number of current aircraft types including, for the first time, those of the Royal Navy (RN).

One of the major issues surrounding nuclear weapon deployment had been how to operate from British bases around the world without upsetting the country concerned. Now Red Beard came into its own, it was possible to have a truly global capability without the bomb having to be stored for any length of time on foreign soil, especially after 1959 when the Royal Navy had started to take delivery of the device. Red Beard was carried on a wide range of aircraft types including the Scimitar, Sea Vixen and Buccaneer with the RN, whilst the ‘V’ force and Canberra were used in the RAF. This was a true tactical weapon. Interestingly, a Controller Air Clearance document issued in 1960 specifically notes that the Scimitar should only carry nuclear weapons in ‘… extreme operational emergencies …’. Considering its track record (over half of the Supermarine Scimitars crashed whilst in service), this was probably a wise move.

Violet Club

Violet Club entered service with the Royal Air Force in 1958 as a stop-gap weapon, covering the final development phase of ‘Yellow Sun’. The device was basically a Blue Danube ballistic casing with an upgraded physics package. It was not a thermonuclear device in the true sense of the word, having an estimated yield of around 500kt. It appears that only five were produced and these were decommissioned a year later.

Yellow Sun

The aptly named Yellow Sun was Britain’s first true thermonuclear device developed for the British deterrent. The weapon had a number of upgrades throughout its time in service, culminating with the Mk II, which had a yield of well over 1 megaton. The aerodynamic fairing measured 6.5m by 1.2m and the whole device weighed 3,175kg. Test results from the Grapple trials provided British scientists with the information on how to produce an extremely efficient implosion device and by Yellow Sun Mk II the physics package had been drastically reduced in size; the fairing, however, was retained. By 1958 the fruits of the new US–UK agreement on information sharing allowed the British team to reduce the package size yet again, assembling a warhead very similar to the American W-28, known as Red Snow. The series were on charge from 1959 until their replacement with the much smaller WE-177 series starting in 1972.

Yellow Sun, Britain’s first true thermonuclear weapon. (Courtesy Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon)

WE-177, the longest serving British design, in service from 1963 to 1998. This weapon was used by both the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

WE-177 Series

The WE-177 was Britain’s longest serving nuclear weapon; the free-fall bomb saw service with both the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. Requirements were first explored during the late 1950s for a versatile lightweight bomb that could be carried on the new proposed generation of aircraft, primarily the Tactical Strike Reconnaissance aircraft, TSR2. Trials of the warhead design were carried out at the Nevada test range in March 1962 under the code name Pampas, forced underground by the imminent Test Ban Treaty, finally signed in 1963. The ballistic casing of the WE-177 was not too dissimilar from the current conventional 500lb iron bomb still in use today.

Construction of the weapon fell to a number of well-proven defence manufacturers and departments. Hunting Engineering became the design authority for the ballistic casing, whilst the AWRE developed and tested the warhead. Other major components were developed and built at the Royal Ordnance Factories in Cardiff, Burghfield and Chorley whilst testing was undertaken at RAE Farnborough and RERDE Fort Halstead, the birthplace of the atomic weapons programme. Three variants were produced, ‘A’ in 1963, ‘B’ in 1965 and ‘C’ 1972. Specific information about the weapons’ performance is still classified; however, two warheads are identifiable. The fission, or single-stage version, of the WE-177 was 2.8m long, just over 40cm in diameter and weighed 270kg. The fusion type was 3.3m long and weighed 430kg, these increases were to facilitate the thermonuclear physics package. It is a sobering thought that WE-177 was only a tenth of the size of Blue Danube but had ten times the destructive power.

TSR-2. This aircraft was to be the mainstay of the nuclear force, carrying WE-177 free-fall bombs and possibly air-launched Blue Water missiles. (Courtesy Pete James)

Deployment

The intended carrier for WE-177, TSR2 was cancelled in April 1965 as part of swathing defence cuts recommended by the Labour Government, but deployment went ahead and the weapon saw long service with both the Navy and RAF. The Navy replaced its stockpile of Red Beards throughout 1970–1971 with Type ‘A’ single-stage WE-177. The small size of the weapon allowed WE-177 to be carried on many more surface vessels, extending the tactical strike and depth-charge capability to many more theatres. It has been suggested that HMS Sheffield was carrying the depth-charge low-yield version of WE-177 during the Falklands campaign in 1982. Naturally the MOD refused at the time to confirm or deny this, yet a salvage operation was carried out on the Sheffield soon afterwards to recover ‘sensitive material’. Clearly something was worth the effort.

WE-177 was deployed internationally in Cyprus, Germany and the Far East as well as being ship-borne, which naturally caused much debate and consternation, as many governments did not like the idea of playing host to Royal Navy ships that could be carrying nuclear weapons. A large number of British aircraft carried WE-177 including the Vulcan, Buccaneer, Jaguar, Sea Harrier, Sea King and Tornado from 1966 until 1995. The final weapon was decommissioned at AWE Burghfield in March 1998. Interestingly, since the end of the Cold War the WE-177 has become the most prolific nuclear weapon on display to the public; examples can be seen at the majority of the aircraft museums around the country.

Mobile Surface-to-Surface Systems

The British army operated a number of nuclear-capable tactical battlefield weapons throughout the Cold War. The majority were American-produced systems and warheads operated under the dual key arrangement. British designers struggled throughout the 1950s to develop a home-grown surface-to-surface system, including Blue Water, but in the face of rising costs these were cancelled in favour of the American proven, although often inferior, designs. Surface-to-surface weapons are those fired from a ground base and are intended to hit another ground site some distance away.

Blue Water

In the mid-1950s English-Electric, later to become part of BAC, undertook a development project contracted by the Ministry of Supply to develop a mobile surface-to-surface guided missile for the army. Project Blue Water involved considerable inward investment by the company, culminating in the building of a new plant at Stevenage and a substantial increase in the workforce. The missile was designed to be air transportable and fully mobile on the battlefield, carried by a Bedford three-ton truck, which also contained the launcher. The initial trials suggested the missile was underpowered and in 1959 the Ministry of Supply lodged a new contract for a solid fuel motor with Bristol Aerojet (BAJ). The final development version had a range of 80km carrying a version of the Red Beard warhead and was even considered as an air-launched missile for the TSR2; but the project was cancelled in 1962 in favour of the American-designed system Honest John.

Corporal

The MSM-5 Corporal was Short Range Ballistic Missile (SRBM) developed from an earlier sounding rocket programme built by the Douglas Aircraft Company. The system was further developed by JPL/Firestone with the first test firing in 1952 and the missile entered service with the US Military in 1954. The system had the capability to deliver a 60kt fission warhead over 120km. Corporal was guided through a ground station with updates being passed to the missile during flight, but the major problem with this being the possibility of jamming the signal. Future updates made the missile a fire-and-forget system, increasing the effectiveness by an estimated 50 per cent. Corporal entered service with the British Army on the Rhine (BAOR) as part of the 47th guided Weapons Regiment Royal Artillery from 1957 after a two-year evaluation at Larkhill, based at the Napier Barracks, Dortmund. In 1964 this was changed to the 47th Missile Regiment.

Honest John

Honest John was a stored liquid-fuel tactical ballistic missile developed and built by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was the first of a long line of unguided, spin-stabilised missiles that were developed for the US Army. The first tests were undertaken at the Redstone Arsenal in 1951 and the system was deployed to Europe with the US Army in 1954. The missile was transported in three parts, casing, fins and warhead, and assembled prior to launch, striking targets at a maximum range of 25km. Honest John saw service with 24th and 50th Missile Regiment Royal Artillery (Msl RA) in Germany with the British Army on the Rhine (BAOR) as part of the NATO commitment, and occasionally on the mainland. The system was removed from service in 1975.