Cuba Crisis 1962
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Everyone remembers the missiles on Cuba, and their withdrawal, when 'The Cuban missile crisis' gets a mention.
Oh those wicked Russkis!
The fact that the aggressive deployment in Cuba was in direct response to the equally aggressive installation of Jupiter IRBMs in Turkey often goes unmentioned though.
Oh those wicked Septics!
(And of course when the Cuba missiles were withdrawn, that was followed by the Jupiters' quietly leaving Turkey...)
Oh those wicked Russkis!
The fact that the aggressive deployment in Cuba was in direct response to the equally aggressive installation of Jupiter IRBMs in Turkey often goes unmentioned though.
Oh those wicked Septics!
(And of course when the Cuba missiles were withdrawn, that was followed by the Jupiters' quietly leaving Turkey...)
Last edited by AtomKraft; 7th Nov 2016 at 00:05. Reason: Jupiter, not Thor.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Like oldpax, arse and alligators. Apart from our instructors at Nav School becoming rather more active than usual, we were locked in the cycle of lessons, sims, log and chart prep and social activities. Papers and TV were much lower down our priority list. I didn't have a radio until two years later.
I was still at college at the time and in the Royal Observer Corps (ROC). I was issued with a letter from the ROC telling me to detail contact numbers for home and work so that I might be got hold of should the need arise, in which case I was to report to my Post immediately.
This teenager, feeling immensely important, presented himself in his Housemaster's office (yes, it was one of those schools) and showed him the letter ... he was unimpressed "What is this ROC?"! I was told that I would only be released with the written permission of the Headmaster and the master taking the class I happened to be in at the time. I said that this was unworkable and I would be going regardless ... the "regardless" I was told would involve a beating!
Had the balloon 'gone up' I suppose I'd be sitting in my bunker dwelling on the possibility of a thrashing, on the other hand the CCCP might have resolved my problem for me!!!
This teenager, feeling immensely important, presented himself in his Housemaster's office (yes, it was one of those schools) and showed him the letter ... he was unimpressed "What is this ROC?"! I was told that I would only be released with the written permission of the Headmaster and the master taking the class I happened to be in at the time. I said that this was unworkable and I would be going regardless ... the "regardless" I was told would involve a beating!
Had the balloon 'gone up' I suppose I'd be sitting in my bunker dwelling on the possibility of a thrashing, on the other hand the CCCP might have resolved my problem for me!!!
Not quite the UK but my late father-in-law who was a B-17 flight engineer during the big one was at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City Southc Dakota commissioning the first Minuteman 1 ICBM's as a civilian engineer who was taken from home ( my wife was like 8) and to the base where he was confined without a briefing initially and given the rank of Major in the USAF . Because of the alert status no civilians were allowed into the command centres. He joked that he left the service in 1945 as a Staff Sargeant ....
Sworn to secrecy and appeared back home after they were stood down some three weeks later.
That base was not formally handed over and was in final commissioning stages...
Sworn to secrecy and appeared back home after they were stood down some three weeks later.
That base was not formally handed over and was in final commissioning stages...
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
FantomZorbin, a few years later, on Micks etc people were called in from far and wide, even 20 miles away . While the open road was unrestricted thgthere were plenty of 30 mph zones but of course no radar traps or cameras.
Once the opportunity arose to ask a senior police officer on whether we would be prosecuted for speeding. He pondered for a moment before saying, well not if it was for real.
I don't know of any prosecutions.
Once the opportunity arose to ask a senior police officer on whether we would be prosecuted for speeding. He pondered for a moment before saying, well not if it was for real.
I don't know of any prosecutions.
84 and Ground Defence Commander at a secret radar site in Norfolk I was excused the requirement that people from Horsham St Faiths quarters travelled in by bus on a callout. Got the trip down to a fine art in my Alfa Sud, but then little traffic at 00silly
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I could get from my OMQ at Waddo to the Tower faster than my staff on foot from their Barrack Blocks. There are times when a Station Bicycle has [different] advantages 
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I seem to remember posting a response on this or a similar thread some years ago. At the height of the Cuba crisis, I was a 16 year old on holiday from boarding school. My father was the CO at RAF Tuddenham (a flight of 107 Sqn at Feltwell). My OMQ bedroom window looked out upon the base where 3 Thor missiles were errect, fuelled and streaming lox for several days at the height of the crisis. Life carried on as normal without family dispersal plans or military support. So glad it ended as it did or none of us would be here now.
Pedro
Pedro
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My father was at the edge of the tension at that time. He served at one of the largest airbases in the western part of the SU where Tu-16 bombers were based. He was head of a group operating those "infernal H- and A-toys", and I learned it from him only some 35 year later when I had even a higher military rank than he at the time of his retirement (though my clearance level was one level lower). He said the officers were on a permanent 24/7 duty at that period, allowing to visit their families for a couple of hours per week only. Dad said that it was very cold at that period of the year and the staff at the airbase were suffering from cold as there was not enough place to sleep in such an emergency conditions. But due to his position he had a "privilege"to sleep on a container with a big "H-toy" inside that was equipped with a sort of a thermostat and was warm enough to "relax on". Sounds really cool.
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Dispersal: I suggested at #52 that we had merely "some" warning from the 2 BMEWS, Alaska/Greenland. But also: some capability arose 10/57 in the Lovell Telescope, Jodrell Bank Experimental Station, Manchester U., brought
to “a state of military vigilance” in 10/62.
//sas-space.sas.ac.uk /3387/1/Journal_of_International_History_2000_n3_ Twigg_and_Scott. 26/1/12, pp.3/4, accessed 20/12/14.
to “a state of military vigilance” in 10/62.
//sas-space.sas.ac.uk /3387/1/Journal_of_International_History_2000_n3_ Twigg_and_Scott. 26/1/12, pp.3/4, accessed 20/12/14.
