MPN11 (#12031),
Thank you for pointing me to this clip. I shall always look back with affection on the three years I spent with the Auxiliaries at Thornaby (en passant finding me a wife, tho' not of their number).
The essential point of the R.Aux.A.F Fighter Control Units was that they formed an instantly available, fully trained Reserve for the Rotor Defence system. We reckoned to get our (mostly) girl Plotters and Operators, and ex-war Fighter Controllers in, on the bus, and "down the hole" in three hours, although this was never put to the test, because of the enormous disruption it would cause to local schools, shops and offices concerned. Fighter Command would get another Vampire squadron (608) at the same time.
An amusing quirk: although a supermarket checkout girl with three months' WRAuxAF service could have a Special Security Pass to go down our "hole" (RAF Seaton Snook), I (their Adj) was denied such a Pass, because as an admin-wallah I had "No need to know". Same went for the Station Commander !
Of course, in the event of a Warsaw Pact strike in Europe, the RAF's existing Reservists (and, I suppose, all who'd served in the trades involved in WWII) would be called in. But they would need to be rounded up, medically checked, kitted out and refresher trained); all this takes time during which our people would "hold the fort" with the drastically reduced number of RAF Regulars.
I think it would have been "All right on the Night", but mercifully we never had to find out. They were disbanded in 1957. Had Peace broken out - I wonder.
Danny.