During the Cuban Missile Crisis I was a 20 year old Jnr Tech Aircraft Electrical Fitter embedded with a bombing up team in the Armoury at RAF Cottesmore. We serviced aircraft from both 10 and 15 Squadrons.
We fitted YS2s to every serviceable aircraft on day 1 and then as aircraft were recovered from maintenance they were immediately bombed up. The next step should have been dispersal to Boscombe Down or St Mawgan but that never happened . We were told afterwards that Harold Macmillan would not give the order to disperse in case it aggravated the situation.He knew that the Russians would have been aware that we were bombed up ready and were taking it seriously. When things calmed down it took nearly 2 weeks to remove the bombs that we had fitted in a couple of days mainly because the Bomb Dump could not cope with so many assembled bombs