Thor sites protected.

[Al R]

BBC News - Cold War missile sites get listed status (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19957466)

Two Cold War nuclear missile sites are to get listed status to mark the Cuban Missile crisis's 50th anniversary. The former RAF sites - in Harrington, Northamptonshire, and North Luffenham, Rutland, are the most intact examples of Thor missile bases in England.

Similarly, Heritage Minister Ed Vaizey said Cold War heritage was "often overlooked.."

Fat chance here. ;)

Good to see though.

[FantomZorbin]

... pity that the reporter on Today called it "North Luffingham". Hey ho, perhaps the BBC hasn't heard of 'The Six Ps'.

[beamer]

Living, as I do, some two miles from Harrington, I wonder when some money will appear to actually tidy up the site. The three launch pads are full of farmers junk and piles of old tyres despite the fact that their sheer strength of construction means they are still in pretty good shape. One at least could be tidied up and a couple of display boards erected to give visitors some idea of what they are viewing.

Incidentally, a visit to the 'Carpetbaggers' museum in the old Ops block is really worth a visit in season. It does not look a lot from the outside but it is a treasure trove of memorabilia inside and a decent cup of tea !

[Dan Winterland]

the things were designed to be proof against nuclear blasts. The few which have been destined for demolition are still around as they are so tough modern demolition machinery still can't touch them. They will still be around in tens of thousands of years time when Stonehenge will have crumbled into dust.

I don't think they need English Heritage's protection!

[romeo bravo]

I'm surprised that the Blue Streak testing facility at Spadeadam hasn't been put on the list. Visited there a couple of years ago and it's looking a mess.

Probably becuase it in the middle of nowhere and can simply rot to nothing :*

[tonker]

That and it's probably something our forward looking politicians want to forget.

Posted via a satellite put into space by an Arianne rocket.

[AARON O'DICKYDIDO]

the things were designed to be proof against nuclear blasts.

I always thought that one of he main reasons for the short length of time in service was that they were stored in flimsey shelters above ground.
The strong concrete pieces were - I thought - part of the launch protection for the ground/launching crews.
The USA kept their Thor ICBM missles in underground silos - we did not.


Aaron.

[kenparry]

the things were designed to be proof against nuclear blasts.

Not these, Dan. The Thor sites were very soft, the missiles housed when horizontal in effectively a sliding tin shed, on the surface. There was no underground silo such as the USAF used with other missiles. The concrete pad had a couple of blast walls at the sides, just to protect other buildings from the exhaust in the event of a launch. Prior to fuelling (which took hours) the shed was slid back and the missile erected to the vertical. Because they were so vulnerable, the Thor presence in the UK lasted ony about 4 years - when there was an effective counter, they were withdrawn.

[herkman]

I believe there are still some RAF Thors in storage in USA

Looked in pretty good condition

Regards

Col

[NutLoose]

Suprised the satellite launch test facility on the IOW hasn't been covered too.

[circle kay]

Dan,
As kenperry says the instillations were relatively soft. Launching the 'Bird' would effectively destroy the pad; the books I’ve seen on the subject infer that the team were told to ‘Go Home’ once the Missile was away. Well at least for a few Mins untill the incoming arrived!:ooh:

[Jimlad1]

My understanding about Spadeadam is that it is protected, but the cost to refurbish it would be vast. The site is huge and crumbling to bits, and people don't actually know what many of the buildings did.

Instead it is now being left to crumble in graceful decline - a sad end but probably the right one. Better to see an original than a rebuild which would be essentially a 'fake' site.

[AGS Man]

There was a somewhat similar article on Anglia News the other day about the Nuclear Storage facility at Barnham, sorry I don't have the link but it is still on the Anglia website.

[NutLoose]

My understanding about Spadeadam is that it is protected, but the cost to refurbish it would be vast. The site is huge and crumbling to bits, and people don't actually know what many of the buildings did.

Instead it is now being left to crumble in graceful decline - a sad end but probably the right one. Better to see an original than a rebuild which would be essentially a 'fake' site.

I originate from a village outside Carlisle and remember watching the smoke / steam clouds rise, felt the ground shaking with the rumble and heard the things running whilst standing on the my primary school playing field as a lad of about 5 or 6. You could just about make out the tower structure on the distant fells.

Used to run quite often and was the thing that got me interested in all things airborne.

[Big Bear]

I believe there are still some RAF Thors in storage in USA



There's one in the USAF Museum at Wright Patterson AFB

Bear

[Innominate]

There's a Thor in the Cold War Exhibition at Cosford, and a Thor Able (swords into ploughshares and all that) in the National Space Centre at Leicester.

[TSR-2]

The launch pads in Woomera are very impressive, being on the side of a cliff, and still relatively intact despite a few bullet marks on them.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/5386781259_fe6c6873e2.jpg

[Not Long Here]

Got to concur with TSR-2. His photo doesn't do the place justice as to the sheer scale of them and how solid they are. The blast channels (or whatever the technical name is) are all constructed from ceramic tiles and the photo doesn't show all the land side infrastructure that was used to get the stuff on the pad.

It's a pity they are so far inside the range - should be conserved and protected rather than used for guns practice.

[ORAC]

the Thor presence in the UK lasted ony about 4 years - when there was an effective counter, they were withdrawn. Depending on who you believe they were retired as part of the agreement with the USSR to pull their missiles out of Cuba - which is why they put them there into Cuba in response.

The Other Other Missiles of October: The Thor IRBMs and the Cuban Missile Crisis (http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=the%20other%20other%20missiles%20of%20october%3A%20the%20t hor%20irbms%20and%20the%20cuban%20missile%20crisis&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsas-space.sas.ac.uk%2F3387%2F1%2FJournal_of_International_Histor y_2000_n3_Twigg_and_Scott.pdf&ei=jmJ-UJejGomN0AXirIDoCQ&usg=AFQjCNHjEj3EvyKK_nDGJiTt-h1gSFP_eQ)

[PTR 175]

Despite the concrete pads being built like a brick outhouse some of them have disapeared over the years. Mepal is one of them. It was very visible from a C 172 for years. I think that it has disapeared under some new warehouse development.

The odd shaped pads were a good spotting feature for us PPL holders.

So yes a good thing they have been saved.

As a matter of interest does anybody think that the bloodhound sites that protected the Thor sites will survive ? Woolfox on the A1 just N of stamford is a good example. It still has some of the composite concrete buildings on it.

[brokenlink]

Agree that point Aaron, certainly the ones over the way on the former RAF Mepal had sheds that were mounted on rails that simply rolled away when the Thor was required. Some of the rails are still in place next to the power station they built on the site a few years ago. Believe that they had a bit of a problem breaking up the old concrete though.

[brokenlink]

Nutlose, Think the IOW facility is now in the care of the National Trust or somesuch body.

[Wander00]

Whereabouts on the IoW?

[MAINJAFAD]

The IoW place was at High Down, near the Needles and was used for testing SARO's Black Knight / Black Arrow rockets, not Blue Streak. Some of the Blue Streak buildings are still used at Spadeadam by the EW Range (one of the engine test stand blockhouses was used as a store for all of the spares for the Russian kit they use up there), though the Blue Streak test stands at Greymare were in a bad condition when I was based there in the late 90s.

As for Bloodhound Mk 1 sites, the one in best condition is the ex 94 Sqn site at Misson, which defended Finningley. It is owned by a military surplus vehicle dealer, who operates the place under the name of 'The Rocket Site'. On one of the missile pads there the owners actually has a rusting Bloodhound Mk1 on a Launcher. The site at Woolfox on the A1 was in good nick, though somebody burnt down the Explosive Fitting Building in the last few years. Most of the buildings are gutted hulks and are used of storage or other purposes (the one remaining LCP building at Woodhall Spa is now the clubhouse of the RAF Conningsby Golf Club).

[Al R]

The site at Woolfox on the A1 was in good nick, though somebody burnt down the Explosive Fitting Building in the last few years.

The site at Woolfox seems to have been given a new lease of life.

RES to hold public exhibitions on Woolfox wind farm plans - Rutland and Stamford Mercury (http://www.stamfordmercury.co.uk/news/environment/res-to-hold-public-exhibitions-on-woolfox-wind-farm-plans-1-6162818)

It must have been something else, driving down the A1 and seeing those Bloodhounds. I'm not sure how these things affect flying these days, but it's possibly lucky there's no flying at Cott anymore then.. :rolleyes:

[pedroalpha]

Too late for RAF Tuddenham I'm afraid; I used to live there in the only married quarter and well remember seeing from my bedroom window the missiles erected and fuelled for days during the Cuba crisis although I was too young to fully comprehend the danger.

I drove past the place a few years ago and discovered that the whole airfield is now a muddy pig farm and the OMQ has been replaced by a Spanish style monstrosity.

I had a working model of a Thor launch pad (Corgi/Airfix?) at the time that had a motorised hangar on rails that would retract, erect the missile and fire it across my bedroom. Might be worth something now if I knew where it was!

[Shackman]

It must have been something else, driving down the A1 and seeing those Bloodhounds. I'm not sure how these things affect flying these days, but it's possibly lucky there's no flying at Cott anymore then.

The wierdest part of it was not only were they in full view (just a wire fence in the way), but there were always one or two that seemed to track your car as you drove along!

[NutLoose]

Flypast this month covers the airfields around Cottesmore, and has some aerial piccies of the Bloodhound sites from the air.

[Al R]

I'll buy that, thanks.

[HTB]

Where else would you take "aerial piccies" from..?

Mister B

[GreenKnight121]

Quote:
the Thor presence in the UK lasted ony about 4 years - when there was an effective counter, they were withdrawn.
Depending on who you believe they were retired as part of the agreement with the USSR to pull their missiles out of Cuba - which is why they put them there into Cuba in response.

The Other Other Missiles of October: The Thor IRBMs and the Cuban Missile Crisis (http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=the%20other%20other%20missiles%20of%20october%3A%20the%20t hor%20irbms%20and%20the%20cuban%20missile%20crisis&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsas-space.sas.ac.uk%2F3387%2F1%2FJournal_of_International_Histor y_2000_n3_Twigg_and_Scott.pdf&ei=jmJ-UJejGomN0AXirIDoCQ&usg=AFQjCNHjEj3EvyKK_nDGJiTt-h1gSFP_eQ)


It was the Jupiter missile sites in Turkey that had the Soviets upset - and they were removed immediately after the Soviet missiles were pulled out of Cuba.

Your own link downplays any relation of the Thor missiles to the crisis, and specifically notes that they were NOT retired as a result of the crisis!

Conclusion
55. The most dangerous crisis of the Cold War arose when the USSR deployed M/IRBMs within range of the USA. One factor in that deployment was Soviet irritation at the US IRBMs in Turkey. We do not yet know how the Soviets viewed the threat from the Thors. From the Soviet perspective, the missile threat was in the context of thousands of Amercian nuclear weapons targeted on the USSR, many from European bases. Yet, the Thors did not emerge as an irritant in British-Soviet or East-West relations. Nor, during the Cuban missile crisis, did the Soviets attempt, publicly or privately, to link the Thors to the Soviet MRBMs in Cuba. The Thor deployment amply demonstrates that Cold War and nuclear confrontations cannot be understood in military terms alone.


56. Yet the operational aspects of missile deployment were important during the missile crisis. President Kennedy was anxious about the command and control of the Jupiters in Turkey and Italy, and the US leadership was exercised, both publicly and privately, over the operational arrangements for the Soviet MRBMs in Cuba. The Americans behaved as though they believed Soviet operational readiness was an indicator of Soviet willingness to use the missiles. Yet the threat posed to Washington from Cuba was no different from the threat posed to Moscow from England. The Thors were at a high state of readiness and could have been fired in less than 15 minutes. The comparison with Soviet missiles is intriguing and underlines how Amercian perception of Soviet military capabilities frequently neglected how things were on the other side of the hill.


57. It is perhaps an irony that the operational readiness of the British Strategic Missile Force was in inverse proportion to its political significance. The proximity of the Jupiters to Soviet territory clearly influenced Soviet (and American) perceptions.


58. It is now clear that when Khrushchev publicly demanded the withdrawal of American nuclear forces from Turkey in return for Soviet withdrawal from Cuba, Kennedy secretly undertook to withdraw the missiles from Turkey (and Italy). Linkage between the Thors and the missiles in Cuban was considered by the British government. For Macmillan it was a basis for possible independent action to break the diplomatic deadlock. For the Foreign Office, anxious not to undermine American diplomacy or appear to be 'chickening out', the Thors could be calibrated with American diplomacy. In the event Kennedy demurred at Macmillan's offer to immobilise the British IRBMs. And although we do no yet know sufficient about Soviet military calculations, it seems reasonable to conclude that during the missile crisis, the Thors were very much a dog that did not bark in the night.


To repeat the article's conclusion: it seems reasonable to conclude that during the missile crisis, the Thors were very much a dog that did not bark in the night.

[Whenurhappy]

I happened to drive over a Thor site today - still very much in military usage, at (RAF) Driffield. One of the launch pads supports a seriously large off-road training berm, whichI drove up and down in a Landrover Discovery. Other parts of the architecture are still vaguely discernible in the driver training area. For a good history with drawings of Thor sites, see English Heritage's Cold War History book published about 10 years ago.

ps. Sadly the Officers' Mess at Driffield was demolished - only last year. The airfield is used for MOD driver training and part of the admin site is a cadet training facility. A few of the quarters are still occupied by RAF personnel.