V-Force wives
 

Afternoon. I'm working on a BBC Radio 4 documentary, The Human Button, about what is was like to be one of those people who maintained Britain's nuclear deterrent. The piece of the jigsaw I'm missing is this: I would very much like to interview the wife of a V-Force crew-member about the impact the job had on family life. I'm interested to know whether aircrew discussed with their wives plans to leave the area in the event of dispersal - since the bases would themselves almost certainly have been targetted. If you can help perhaps you could drop me a line at [email protected]. Thank you.

Just a packet of this in the window!;);););):E

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y76/shad84/omo.jpg

But the Sovs knew that the force was going to be dispersed in a crisis - so logically the safest place to be was on the base.

LO, not so. The main bases, after dispersal, became 4-ac dispersals in their own right. They might also have housed spare weapons and been recovering lame ducks.

I grant that the main bases were inside the ring of steel so the main threat was missiles and not bombers.

There is also the question of whether the targets would have been counter-value - Birmingham, Manchester, Lincoln, or counter-force - Ballykelly, Machrahanish, Valley, Brawdy etc etc ie no hiding place.
I always thought that the air defence exercises, defending the radar sites, were all a waste of time as there was never a realistic conventional bombing attack so far from the IGB. Much better lob a few missiles over the top.

Probably a case of we will practise defence that we can and ignore defence that we can't and s*d reality.

The general consensus at the end of the frequent wives' sherry parties (at the maudlin stage) was 'Head west and find a man with a gun', supported by my next-door neighbour's phlosophy that a woman always has something to sell. However, going west wouldn't have been clever if the enemy's targets had been counter-force.

The only sure fire way to take out the V force was to bomb all the clap clinics.

Thanks ...
 

... for the banter. And thanks to the V-Force wives who got in touch. The programme will go out at 8pm on 2 December (Radio 4) for anyone who's interested! Thanks again. Richard