I was joined today by DAVID CLARK who made a welcome return to PHOENIX FM to disclose some of the hitherto secrets of the cold war era and our independent nuclear deterrent.
Between 1958 and 1961, David spent time with the RAF at Honington in Suffolk where he joined those involved at the sharp end of the Cold War and Britain’s defense programme. At the first sign that sign that Russian missiles had been fired, 164 Vulcans and Victors together with aircraft stationed here from the US Strategic Air Command, would have taken off within 4 minutes with the aim of obliterating Russian cities with hydrogen bombs, whilst Russian missiles would have obliterated ours. This was known as Mutually Assured Destruction – MAD!
Frequent indoctrination lectures were given to both the aircrew and ground crew. The aircrew knew that assuming they could even fly back after the raid, there would almost certainly be nowhere left to land in practice. These lectures appeared to have little if any practical value! That said it must have been apparent that even assuming the raids were successful – and David estimated that around half the bombers would get through, that it was in fact a “death sentence”. Anyone baling out over territory that had been wiped out would not have survived for very long given the radio activity, and even assuming that they got home, it was unlikely there would be anywhere to land and even had they been able to find somewhere to land, once again the radio activity would not have been conducive to a lengthy survival. Indeed there were no fall out shelters available for ground crews who in the event of war would simply have been sent home to put their affairs in order!
For most of the time it would not have been possible to launch a full scale response, but this would change rapidly in the event of “increasing political tension”. Indeed this occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 at which time both the RAF and the USAF were at the highest state of alert. The aircraft were all flown to their dispersal airfields from where the attacks would have been launched. The planes were on runways with engines running to allow take off within 2 minutes. Aircrews were told to get their families “out of the way” and to put their affairs in order. Art treasures were stored in a disused coal mine and as the now revealed Soviet spy, Anthony Blunt was on the committee organising this, he duly reported to his Russian masters that we weren’t bluffing and we meant business.
You can listen to the whole interview again right here: – [audio:https://www.phoenixfm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Secrets-of-the-cold-war.mp3|titles=Secrets of the cold war]
Later on I was joined by FRANCES CLAMP for our BRENTWOOD & BILLERICAY BYGONES feature. This week, and for the next couple of weeks, Frances is looking at the causes of THE PEASANTS REVOLT back in 1381. What struck me were the parallel’s with much of the recent past. Indeed one factor that came up was that those good citizens who turned up to pay their taxes were told that they would also have to pay the taxes for those who had failed to appear. Sound familiar?
Listen to Frances again here: – [audio:https://www.phoenixfm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Bygones-24th-July.mp3|titles=Bygones 24th July]
Well that’s me done for another week, but I must just thank Alan Johnson and Nikki Mills for filling in for me last week. Enjoy the Olympics – see you next Saturday.
Scott
