How O was 232 OCU?

[RedhillPhil]

Something else I've often wondered.
Pa was based at Gaydon from March '63 until October '66.
Until June '65 it was home to Victors - the Valiants of course being grounded from (I think) circa December '64. Now, were we really living in close proximity to buckets of sunshine or were those lovely aircraft purely trainers?
It didn't seem such an interesting place when the Victors went and the Varsities moved in.

[Yellow Sun]

Gaydon was an interesting place from a nuclear point of view. The nuclear weapons storage area was the first all British example. It was not located on the airfield, but approximately 1 mile to the NW:

52.186352,-1.534581

It now houses the main store of the British Film Institute's National Archive (http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/g/gaydon/).

YS

[RedhillPhil]

Thanks for the reply but...those co-ordinates take me to Friston in Norfolk.

[D120A]

Without checking, RP, surely the minus should take you West, not East of the Meridian?

[Yellow Sun]

Thanks for the reply but...those co-ordinates take me to Friston in Norfolk

Just cut and paste it into Google or Bing maps.

YS

[RedhillPhil]

So sorry, I missed the minus sign.:(

[tornadoken]

Although Gaydon housed the Victor OCU to 6/65, and although it is included in a Staff paper of 8/59: "Storage capacity available or planned...showed that (9 bases inc. Gaydon) had buildings designed to house MT and KT weapons" (Wynn, RAF Nuclear Deterrent Forces, P.266) it is probable none was ever permanently stored there. It would be RAF's "repository of knowledge and experience" on Valiant and Victor (Wynn,P.100), but not of their weapons. That was BCAS/Wittering.

2 Valiants were with 232, 3/55; 138 Sqdn. had its first Valiant there 8/2/55 before moving (4 on 6/7/55, 4 on 16/11/55) to Wittering, "possessor of all knowledge and experience of atomic bombs...and holder of existing stocks of weapons" (Wynn,P.118), which were not given Full MoS CA Release until 7/57 (R.Moore, Nuclear Illusion, Nuclear Reality,Palgrave,2010,P.112). From 9/60-31/3/62 with Red Beard, 138 Sqdn's dispersal for Exercises Kingpin/Kinsman was Gaydon (Wynn,P.306); Wittering Victor 2/Blue Steel dispersed there, though a Transport base, 1965-68...but we have repeatedly been told that RAF never carried live weapons in UK. We scarcely had enough buckets to match U/E aircraft, far less scatter spares vaguely into distant Supplementary Storage Areas on spec for a dispersing flock. OCUs were to provide bodies, not Bombs.

You might however be pleased to know that the Sovs. did not know that, and that Staffs, 11/67, assumed Gaydon to be a target. P.Hennessy,Secret State,P’guin,2010,P212.

[Yellow Sun]

Although Gaydon housed the Victor OCU to 6/65, and although it is included in a Staff paper of 8/59: "Storage capacity available or planned...showed that (9 bases inc. Gaydon) had buildings designed to house MT and KT weapons" (Wynn, RAF Nuclear Deterrent Forces, P.266) it is probable none was ever permanently stored there. It would be RAF's "repository of knowledge and experience" on Valiant and Victor (Wynn,P.100), but not of their weapons. That was BCAS/Wittering.

An interesting aside is that the SSA at Gaydon had all the lifting and handling gear installed in the buildings. One of the local farmers bought it for scrap before the site was acquired by the BFI.

Wittering Victor 2/Blue Steel dispersed there, though a Transport base, 1965-68.

Small slip there, Gaydon was Training Command during that period. By 1968 the SSA was being used as the unit war emergency equipment store, mainly shovels and field kitchens, distinctly non-nuclear!

YS