Last take off ?

[Paracab]

This thread is aimed at the pilots who served through the cold war.

My question is how did you feel, knowing that at any time, the balloon could go up, you could be scrambled, go on to carry out the mission, yet there was probably nothing to come home to, including family.

Not sure if I coud have coped, and I'm just wondering how you Guys did, and what your thoughts about it were during the depths of the cold war.

Sorry if this has been covered, I searched and failed...

[BEagle]

We had good leadership and morale was high. We didn't have:

A creeping cancer of contractorisation.

Continual pinpricks of financial cutbacks

Investment in People

"I hear what you say"

Idiots like Blair and Hoon sucking Uncle Spam's backside


Plus we had a proper sized RAF with the best training in the world. We even did basic flying training on military jet trainers, everyone flew far more than they did now from 3 times as many aerodromes.

And people didn't spend so much time deployed away supporting Blair's bring-a-bottle wars in some desert $hithole.....

[The Swinging Monkey]

Beagle,

I couldn't have put it any better, spot on
Oh Happy Days
(Q for a song maybe??)

Kind regards
The Swinging Monkey
'Caruthers, do you still remember those halcion days old man?
.....then let's have a large Grouse and toast them Eh?'

[RileyDove]

The problem is that it's easy to speculate on what people might do but can you imagine returning to your home base in the certain knowledge that the guys on the ground have probably
been taken out on the first strike. A quick phone call to family and friends reveals that they are suffering from radiation sickness and will be dead in hours.
It's a big 'what if' but I feel the full horror of the situation with
the lucky few in deep underground bunkers would have left a population severely sapped of morale. The doctrine of 'Survive to Fight' is great but in reality 'Survive for What?' should have been
it. This isn't pacifism but to suggest people could survive and live in a massive post nuclear Britain is a flight of fantasy.

[Beeayeate]

At Geilers during the long dark nights on QRA in the 60s we sometimes used to talk about this very subject (when taking a rest from the days-long interminable game of Risk). The subject was discussed pretty much in the abstract though as there were definite "instructions" we had to follow if the worst happened. Occasionally one or both sets of aircrews would join in the discussion when, eg, we had cooked up a two dozen egg omlette.

As I recall, the seriousness of the problem was never understated but the overriding feeling was that this was what we were there for. As ground crew, we knew that any dispatched QRA Cranberry wouldn't need an after-flight and I know the zobbits knew that too.

The subject was never dwelt upon though, never got morbid, why? one word - banter. Not machismo, not heroics, nothing like that, banter kept the spectre at bay in our minds, banter and a sense of "duty". That's not a cool word these days though it seems, at least not to some.

If it hit the fan, the aircrews would have to go somewhere east to give some other poor sods a couple of seconds of intense sunshine. Meanwhile we were to get to MT, collect the sqn allocated Magerius Deutz 3-tonners (there were hunderds of these) and evacuate the sqn personnel and the familes of sqn personnel from MQs. All the camps in 2TAF had such a scheme I think, and all camps had had to get to pre-allocated "gathering" locations - ours was on the south part of the Rheindahlen ring-road I think (map and grid co-ords in a sealed envelpope in the Maggie's glove box). From that location the Maggies from all the camps we were supposed to drive in various convoys to the channel ports, for instance, our sqn's embarkation destination was Ostend.

This "evac" procedure was practised only twice while I was out there. All the camps sent their Maggies to pre-selected parts of the ring-road under MP escort. It was a sight to see and, although deadly serious, a lot of fun too.

So, what got us through those times? Banter. That and what is now called "gallows humour".

Would we, pilots and groundies, have made it? Of course we would've fecking well made it! No other outcome was thinkable! If you thought otherwise you shouldn't have joined in the first place if you couldn't take a joke.

As Beags says, we had a "proper" air force in those days, maybe not "better" but, in a lot of people's minds a lot more gooder!

But what was worse to my mind was later, guarding an airfield in the UK against IRA incursion - with a pick-axe handle!

[Tiger_mate]

Guarding with a pick-axe handle

I did that once when I was ground based. Thought it daft so attached a white cardboard cutout Armalite to the side of it and got rodded out bigstyle in the TACEVAL debrief for not taking the exercise seriously.

I heard a rumour that when the mass evac was practised, an elderly German topped herself rather then "Go through it all again", hence it was not done again.

Anyone remember the RAF plod guarding the autobahn access when the hooters went off, to stop folks on leave doing a runner?

My cold war days were spent delivering Milan rather then sunshine, we would have got dicked in the end (through numbers) but put up a bl00dy good fight until then.

Happy days in a freezing barn up to your eyeballs in sh1te, with a Puma or 2 parked inthe orchard.

[kitwe]

Don't remember ever disussing this topic at any great length so I suppose we all thought that it was part of the job. Nobody I knew ever expected to return to homebase anyway. If we got the launch order, we were probably just as safe in the air as those left on the ground.

[DamienB]

Second hand story, as I was mostly non-existent during the really tense bits of of the cold war, but I had a chat with an Victor pilot at the Waddo show one year and got onto this very subject. His crew, all single guys, had discussed what to do on the way back from a 'sunshine laydown' (his term), and while other crews had elaborate plans that ended up with a V bomber on a tropical island, they decided that they would be using the aeroplane itself to have a go at something juicy nearby - SAM site, airfield, bridge, whatever presented itself. After recounting this he looked up and said "Of course, we were stupid boogers, the tropical island was a much better idea!"

Whole cold war thing still gives me the willies occasionally - I remember air raid drill at school in Gibraltar in the 1970s, where we were trained to hide under our desks in the event of WW3 breaking out. I'd love to know what those desks were made out of!!

[FJJP]

Beags - as usual, right to the point. Couldn't agree more. Nothing to come home to - great incentive to get the bast***s who took out all you lived for.

[Man-on-the-fence]

I have a friend who was on 14 Sqn at Bruggen(?) in the late 80's (he was on airframes). He can remember being in the alert hangar with the aircraft loaded with instant sunshine. The pilot noted to the crew chief that the main wheel tyres wouldnt take another landing. The Chiefy without batting an eyelid said that if he took off with the plane loaded as it was he wouldnt need them for a landing. "Good point" said the winged hero.

Urban Legend? Probably but a good story nonetheless.

[Beeayeate]

MotF

14 Sqn also stood nuke QRA in my time in Germany. They were at Wildenrath with B(I)8 Canberras. The sqn was re-numbered from 88Sqn.

Your "Chiefy" tale is typical and is probably true, but the "80's" was during the end-game really.

Thinking of those days brings back memories of "M" passes, the US Guardians, "shapes", nuke-cities, no-lone zones, the game of Risk, but most of all. . . the clarity of purpose.

[The_Baron]

I believe that we all would have gone east, if asked, and we had no expectation of coming back. I also remember the gates at Bruggen being closed as soon as the hooter went off to preventd escapees.

[Paracab]

May I take this opportunity to thank everybody who has contributed their memories so far, it has made for very interesting and somewhat chilling reading.

I'm sure there is some more potential on this thread, if anyone has anything to add.

Once again, Thanks.

[can8nav]

Just come across this site as I was doing a bit of research for some notes for some family history. Served at Geilers, 59 and 3 Sqdn from early '59 to '62 and have the happiest of memories. Yes, we thought about going East while on QRA but the job seemed worth doing and we trained and trained - some pretty good times in the bar as well! In retrospect I guess that we did a reasonable job and I guess that we all kidded ourselves that WE could make it back - naviagtion would be easy Geilers would be the big glow on the horizon!! I know that when the Wall came down I felt that maybe we had got it right - and raised a glass to the crews who came unstuck in the heavy training days. Memories of struggling into uniform over PJ,s while the kids cheer on the fire-engines as they steam round the quarters to drag us all out for an 'alert'. Remember also the Regiment guys coming round and checking that there were supplies for the kids (baby) in the basement and a blanket ready to hang over the door!! Real morale booster for the wife, that one.
Regards to all of you who were there - good times and good friends.

[Ozgrade3]

So did the crews have any plan for what to do after the unthinkable. You have baen scrambled, dropped your bomb on your target, you would have presumed that they did the same, most bases, cities in western Europe were now ashes. Where would you have gone.

[chevvron]

I was in a voluntary organisation called the Royal Observer Corps, on a 'special duties' team. One of our tasks would be pinpointing any airfields which hadn't been hit or affected by fallout.

[MReyn24050]

Originally Posted by chevvron

I was in a voluntary organisation called the Royal Observer Corps, on a 'special duties' team. One of our tasks would be pinpointing any airfields which hadn't been hit or affected by fallout.

During the late 50s and early 60s I was employed as a junior Design Draughtsman with a small Aircraft Maintenance Company based at Gatwick Airport the Chief Designer, family man with a wife ant three small children, was also a member of the Royal Observer Corps in his spare time. I understand that the purpose of the ROC at that time was, in the event of a nuclear strike, to monitor the effects of the nuclear explosions.
Between 1957 and 1964, the Observers moved from rainy and windswept surface posts to underground posts, small reinforced concrete boxes the size of a caravan I believe. These had simple instruments to measure explosive blast, the height and angle of flash from nuclear explosions, and the short-lived but lethal radiation from weapons fallout.
I often wonder what would have happened in the event the balloon going up. Would the ROC members have gone underground leaving their families to face the destruction and mayhem alone?

[Windy Militant]

I've often wondered how many aircraft would actually have got away. Even from a state of full alert you'd not get that far in the three minutes however many seconds you'd actually get if the balloon really went up.
I'm sure that Ivan would have thought of this and cheerfully aimed a few megatons to airburst in that general direction. I'm presuming that's why we moved to SSBN.
Generally speaking can any one out there give an idea of how well the various aircraft would have coped in the extremly hostile environment that would have resulted.
(Without giving away any classified details obviously)

[D120A]

Cold War Blues

The Cold War seemed to provoke philosophical thoughts among civilians, as well as military people. One very pretty girl in our 1961 A-level maths class, at the height of public awareness of Fylingdales, BMEWS etc., said “if we have one of these Four Minute Warnings and it turns out to be a false alarm, some of us girls are going to look pretty stupid, aren’t we?”

For me it was one of the most profound statements of the Cold War. Perhaps it explains the rest of the swinging 1960s and a few other changes that seem to have started from about that time.

[can8nav]

Comments on points raised recently

Ozgrade3/Mig 15
Fair comment and our options were limited by the logisitics of the strike profile. These profiles were low-level and the distance 'there' and back close to the max range of the BI8. Admittedly, the range option could be increased by climb to height (45,000) after the target but this put us in truly hostile combat environment than down in the weeds. Some discussion (not entirely serious) centred on the use of Gotland or Bornholm, islands of the coast of Sweden with some nice long flat beaches, as a sanctuary. These were unlikely to be involved in the scrap and were not downwind of the 'hollyhocks' area. Our own crew option was to check that base was gone and then go as far south as poss and look for a put down - navs did not have a good feeling about bale-out from the 8!!

Windy Militant
The anticipated scenario for WW3 involved a detectable build-up to hostilities, both politically and militarily, leading to the point where real military moves were made. Tactical doctrine of the time meant that NATO tried to hold on the ground but would have to resort to the nuclear option when the inevitable breakthrough of the Pact forces took place - ?Fulda Gap? It was assumed that Nato wouild get off at least the prepared QRA strikes and depending on the time available a fair number of subsequent sorties. Reaction of this type was practised at Tac-Evals and for real, at least in my case, when the Wall went up in '61. Would we have got through ?? - earlt 60's Pact forces were Mig 15 and 17, Yak 25 (Flashlight) and a few Su 7s all thought to be relatively ineffective at low level (we hoped!!) There was no SAM capability at that time at the heights we flew (way down) but lots of nast ZSu 23-2s. Luck of the draw against them. We were well trained, see comments from other above, and we did expect to make good our target runs.

Hope this sheds a little light and good to hear from all of you - missed out on the young ladies making the best of the 'four minutes' tho!