nuclear bomb storage at RAF North Coates

[airfield1234]

A report in a Lincolnshire newspaper today claims that nuclear warheads were once stored at RAF North Coates, can anybody confirm this?

[Lightning Mate]

Not true....

[chevvron]

Typical newspapers; getting missiles confused with nukes.
As far as I'm aware, North Coates was a Bloodhound site from about 1960, set up to 'protect' a cluster of Thor (nuclear warhead) ICBM sites further inland one of which was Ludford Magna and the other two I believe were Caistor and Hemswell. Lindholme was the T82 radar unit built to detect incoming 'hostiles' to tell the missile operators where to look.

[airfield1234]

Phew I thought it was me going barmy? Obviously the Bloodhound was not intended for carrying a nuclear warhead, there was no need as it was an air to air interceptor.however lots of things went on at North Coates in the early days, much of which is not general knowledge .e.g. a V2 stored was stored there for a time so anything unusual would not really be talked about.
Having said that, the storage of nuclear warheads would,in my opinion be a specialist task with special facilities such as those at Scampton.
This originated from the memoirs of a 97 year old civilian who worked on a number of RAF airfields in the 1960s he was in charge of the Works & Bricks dept which would have given him a certain amount of freedom on airfields.He stated "it was not general knowledge" One has to take the memory of a 97 year old into consideration, Personally I think it is a classic case of a failing memory, but, never say never

[chevvron]

If he worked at a number of airifelds, he could be getting confused with another, there are plenty in Lincolnshire to choose from. Obviously the 'cluster' of Thor sites would each have storage facilities, plus the V-bomber bases, then of course there was Fawldingworth; nobody seems to know what went on there!!

[tornadoken]

Logically he is confused with 92MU Faldingworth. I have that as housing Munitions Det.5/USAFE, 19/9/58-14/8/63, custodials for W-49 for Thor, then solo-RAF/RN to hold RN's Red Beards, 14/8/63-23/1/72, and Scampton's Blue Steel Red Snows (no on-site SSA), 16/4/64-21/12/70.

[sisemen]

No nukes at North Coates - ever

After the cessation of hostilities North Coates was placed on Care and Maintenance, transfered to Maintenance Command as a sub-site for 25 MU. 25 MU was succeded by 61 MU in Oct 1945. This was not to last and in Dec 1946 Flying Training Command took over the site in preparation for the establishment of No 1 Initial Training School on 1 Jan 1947. This too did not stay long and departed for South Cerney in Oct 1947. A few months later the Stn had another phase of life as a technical training centre; this ended abruptly following the 1953 January floods.

Between 1945 and RAF withdrawal in 1990 it hosted maintenance units, a Sycamore helicopter sqn and Britain's first Bloodhound surface-to-air missile site.

The V2 was probably stored there because; a. It might have been a good visual aid for the 25 Sqn Bloodhound people or, b. It was close to the College of Air Warfare at Manby and it might have formed part of the syllabus.

Nuclear storage areas and/or Thor missile bases will leave concrete "signatures" which will probably last for a thousand years and will be of interest to future archaeologists.

[airfield1234]

I reckon we are all agreed then that nuclear bomb storage at RAF North Coates was about as likely as us having a decent summer ever again. As a matter of interest it is my understanding that the V2 was on display in the TCC hangar and eventually went to one of the museums,sadly none of the museums in the UK can confirm if this one was one their example.
Here is another query, one of the Bloodhound units at North Coates placed a Messerschmitt Komet on the main gate for a short period. The story goes that it belonged to one of the squadrons that had recently returned from Germany, this was in 1962? The Komet was eventually returned to Germany and is now on display in the Deutsche Museum in Munich. This story came from one of the squadron members. The problem here is that date of 1962 does not match any units returning from Germany.
Any ideas?

[tornadoken]

The Me.163 that went to Munchen in 1965 was 1203/70 that had long been dismantled in storage (my feeble mind says: a Cranwell satellite, and mutters Fulbeck...Barkston Heath) and was first displayed, assembled, at Biggin BoB Day, 1964. Ditto the Dinah now at Cosford. Could the re-assembly have been done, 1962/63, at N.Coates?

[airfield1234]

It was Barkston Heath where all the RAFs reserve collection was placed( in a draughty old T2 hangar). I suppose there is the possibility that restoration took place at North Coates but my information is that it came from Germany in the first place where it had been a squadron 'war prize' so to speak. The story is that the squadron had been the custodian of this Komet for some years having found it on an airfield over there in 1945/46, wherever the squadron went the Komet went too. The problem here is that there were no squadrons and units at North Coates at that time were actually reformed rather than returning from overseas