Stumbled across an old BH1 site, (still recognisable as such on internet maps) near Misson near Finningly recently. Advertised as 'Rocket Site' but with BH mounted outside warranted a quick search on getting home. Before my time, but I was never really aware of localised SAM defences in the uk.

As I said elsewhere, the 301 (Skybolt aircraft) engined Mk2s could develop greater thrust if set to take-off power and were thus seen as more suitable for the higher temperatures of the far east. Initially the Cottesmore wing was assigned to the far east role with 24 aircraft. With the pending disbandment of 12 Sqn the Waddington near east role, with a 16 aircraft requirement, was swapped to Cottesmore and the 201s.

The 301 higher take-off power produced significantly more thrust than was needed and increased engine fatigue. They were then restricted to cruise power for take-off which, as 50+ said, meant they had the same take-off run as the 201 aircraft.

Bloodhound Mk 1 sites were:

Breighton
Carnaby
Dunholme Lodge
Marham
Misson
North Coates
Rattlesden
Warboys
Watton
Woolfox Lodge

We had Bloodhound Mk 2 at RAF Wattisham - one of the missile pads couldn't be used as the launcher would have been about 2 ft from a PSA lighting pole...so the rocket wouldn't have got very far.

Having a SAM site on an active AD aerodrome was...interesting. Although it gave us an excellent excuse for wazzing the place on approved aerdrome attacks (until some mate went over OC Ops Wg's office at about 500 knots), the Rules for security lighting directly contradicted the Rules for aerodrome lights during exercises. So although the area south west of Needham Market might have been a black hole (in lighting terms!), the blaze of security lights surrounding the Bloodhound site could be seen from Lowestoft on a good night....:\

I was fortunate enough to be tasked to arrange some activity for a station Mineval once - an opportunity for much inspired villainy! One item of which was a 'defecting' Vulcan which was escorted through the Bloodhound MEZ by a pair of F-4s. Once inside min. range, the Vulcan crew had been tasked to accelerate and open the bomb doors to see what the reaction from the F-4 crews would be. All went to plan, but as the Vulcan approached the aerodrome, over the ether came the immortal words of the 'Mad Major', 56(F)'s Luftwaffe exchange officer as he broke off from formating on the Vulcan's wing: "SHOOT ZE F***ER!!"...followed by an amused "Fox 2" from the other jet.

Woodhall Spa was also a Mk 1 BH base. The launch pads are visible on the google earth imagery from 1999.

BEagle,


In addition to your comprehensive list of Bloodhound 1 stations there was also No. 222 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa for the defence of Coningsby.

Interesting thing the Bloodhound 1 force, spawned out of the 'age of the guided missile' 1957 Defence White paper yet they were all gone by 1964 and apart from the Bloodhound 2, which went mainly abroad, no replacement was ever developed. Missile age? What missile age?

Yes, sorry - I missed out Woody Spa!

When I first arrived at Sunny Scampton, I was intrigued by the local sites which had once been aerodromes - Dunholme Lodge and Ingham were almost within the visual circuit. When I discovered that Dunholme Lodge had been a SAM site defending Scampton in earlier days, it made me rather amused to think that the sole defence we had at the time was the RAF plod on the gate with his SMG - there wasn't even a pass check in those days when you drove in! Although the nuclear weapon storage site was probably patrolled by armed guards and their woolly alligators.

What an absolutely fascinating thread that this has become. Thank you to everyone who posted, as its really invaluable information for me.

It does strike me though that perhaps the time is rapidly approaching to ask our V Force friends to start recording their memories through the IWM - the events of the early 1960s are now half a century ago, and time will start taking those veterans from us in the not too distant future.

Perhaps we need to push for a 'forgotten voices of the V-Force' book, which chronicles the incredible job done by the RAF during this period?

Digressing slightly, the missile age was fine, in theory, at delivering punishment at the touch of a button and defending the bases through SAM. A big issue with missiles is that the SSM is a one-shot use-it or lose-it system optimised for just one enemy and a SAM defence cannot pursue an air policing mission.

The defensive benefit from the UK being an island extends to the ability to engage enemy forces at a distance from the UK. Better an interceptor at 200 miles than a SAM inland in UK. This was brought home when Hungary was becoming a western state. Her air defence was naturally confined within her borders as she is landlocked. The air policing mission was the preserve of a SAM 6 battery in the centre. It was the only unit that could react to a sudden incursion.

As we know, Sandys logic was flawed from the outset but not before the UK aircraft industry was almost destroyed.

V force 60s
 

I can still remember (Just) my first posting to Waddo in 63 - straight out of BE training. I have a few "anecdotes" which might amuse should anyoneone want to publish a broadbased (i.e. including us poor bug*ers on the ground) record of cold war activity on the Vulcan Force...

But hurry up - the old memory is dimming:uhoh:

OME, well here, for a general V-force flavour, or Did You Fly the Vulcan in the nostalgia forum.

Are you going to the Newark Reunion in April?

Beags - there is still a detection function at Ingham; the Met Office have a weather radar there now.

Lunchtime in the Officers' Mess bar. One young Havn'tbeenanywheredriver buying a pack of Rothmans. Brand new; still a Pilot Officer on his first week on an operational station. Collared by an Air Commodore (Engineering Branch).
"What's it like to be in a dead-end job?"
I had never seen an Air Commodore before let alone answer questions from one.
"What do you mean, Sir,"
"Don't you know you are going to be replaced by missiles in a few years and you will be out of a job."
With that he turned back to his chortling minions.

That was in 1962.

I wouldn't carry on worrying about it though. If he was an Air Cdre 50 years ago, he's probably dead by now.

Green Flash, yes, the weather guessers' beetle and fir cone farm at Ingham (or Cammeringham) was a well known landmark during my course at CFS.

Coming back in murky weather on my A2 ride, I saw it out of the corner of my eye, so knew exactly where I was and would only have had to say "I have control", count to five and turn down the A15 to call right base.... But to heck with that, it would have got us back quicker and given more time for me to cock something up. My 'Bloggs' continued to fly the IF exercise as instructed (he'd aleady been 'picked up' for flying eyes half in and half out when he should have been on the dials), so we wasted an extra 10 minutes or so on the 'radar to visual' approach I'd requested....;).

And yes, a first time A2 pass....:ok:

Fareastdriver: the Met. Office equivalent of the missile age was "the paper-less office". This holy grail of non-operational very senior officers, few of whom had drawn isobars on a chart or briefed an anxious OC Ops, was mooted c. 1960 when stinkingfax. machines were installed in Met. Offices and, I think, V force dispersals. The mantra was still being chanted when I handed in the fir cone, crystal ball and seaweed 40 years later.

When I'm right no-one remembers, when I'm wrong, no-one forgets.

Fascinating thread about the sound of freedom, brings back happy memories of feeling useful and valued.

Tornadoken - many thanks for the comprehensive note. One small point on QRA - Wynn (p.550) has it starting on 1 Jan 62, with one aircraft per squadron.

Hope this helps

S41

S41: indeed he does. He also has no co-housing of US and UK bombs, same SSA, and has US gone from BC SSAs 17/3/62. So: YS2 into Wadd/Honington some weeks later. Finningley SSA served Scampton so 27 and 83 Sqdns. could have stood Q from 1/1/62, soon 617 Sqdn, with their interim YS2. Wadd. Vulcan 1 44/50/101 Sqdns. from c.1/4/62, Honington Victor 1 55/57 Sqdn from c.1/5/62.

Plans on paper are Archive sources; facts on ground may have differed. Wynn P.303 has 14/12/59 Plan for 30 dispersals, cockpit readiness at end of runway: i.e: cheap. That could explain posters' suggestions/log book visits to, say, Tarrant Rushton, Thorney I., Chivenor, Shawbury, Kemble, W.Freugh. P.301 has 22/10/59 wish for turning loops at Leeming and Pershore. P.302, 22/10/59 has ORPs as "by far the best method". Then P.306, 2/62 has "a building programme now in hand for ORPs (&tc) at (9 Main Bases and) 27 dispersals"...but that was before 12/62 demise of Skybolt, which was to have equipped at least 48 Vulcan 2, Coningsby/Scampton. I suggest that of these 27, the commitment to Polaris instantly scuppered (Stansted and) Bruntingthorpe, Burtonwood, Cranwell, Elvington, Llanbedr, Middleton St.George, Prestwick: these 7, P.552: "given up in 1966".

PN: Wynn's P.338 BOl.301 point is "a rapid start capability...(by31/12/63) 32 a/c were fitted". MF >1969: P.554 has Defence Minister Healey, 3/7/69: "it is no longer necessary to keep a/c of the V-bomber force at immediate readiness".

This was of course almost a year after the V-bomber force had stood down from immediate readiness. It is worth noting however that there was a partial generation in late July or early August 1968. We never knew why but a partial generation, some 16-20 aircraft IIRC, supported the rumour that the bomber on patrol had either lost comms or was otherwise u/s.

There was, I believe, a further operational generation in late 1969 after Dennis Healey's announcement.

Interestingly DH said in The Human Button that he would never have given the order to retalliate. James Callaghan had no such reservations but did say he would not have been able to live with himself.

DH was once a card carrying member of the Communist Party.

Fareastdriver,

You sure?

He was certainly a medal winning British Army Major.

Yes; pre-war at university.

according to Wiki, Healey left the CP in 1939
But so did a lot of others who went "under cover" and cut all overt links with the Communist Party, but remained as secret members for years after
I have read (years ago) speculation that he was one of the purported "Oxford Spy Ring" the supposed undiscovered twin of the Cambridge ring but I don't think anyone has ever come up with any convincing evidence, let alone proof
However he was chums with Ted Heath, who did a pretty good job of wrecking the country, so maybe there is a ghost of truth in the theory...
Perhaps Healey, Heath and Thatcher were three of the Oxford four - after all the later two were both pretty destructive and arguably were partially the cause of the current collapse of the capitalist system (i.e Common Market, Banking deregulation....)

MM, nice one. She also f*ck*d communism so you could say she was even handed.

Whwn I was a kid in post-war London the Communist Party was still in full swing. One has to remember that the House of Commons reverberated to 'The Red Flag' after Atlee's election victory in 1945. The Daily Worker was as common as the Daily Mirror in the shops. In the sixties The Young Liberals was effectivly a Communist Front organisation.
It was fashionable for the intelligentia before the war to join the CP as Russia was seen as the cure for the world's troubles. Nowadays they join the Green Party or Friends of the Earth.

FareastDriver

There is a difference - FoE and the Green Party don't take instructions from the Comintern / KGB / Soviet representatives.

A friend of mine who was an active "overt" member in the 1960-70's has previously made it clear to me that there was significant Soviet "support" to the Communist Party in the UK during that period, and more so during the pre-war period

Wasn't there in the sixties a Liabor defence minister or Air Force minister that the RAF refused to nuclear brief because he was seen to be a security risk?

Regards

Air pig

AP, not proven I think. I know there was a move to get ministers security vetted but IIRC Harold Wilson for good reasons rejected that plan.

air pig

David Leigh's book "The Wilson Plot" relates how a Treasury Minister, Niall MacDermot was refused a security clearance because of unproved accusations over his wife's Russian origins / connections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_MacDermot

The same book (same chapter : 7) also relates how a Labour MP , prospective minister, and former CP member, Bernard Floud, was interrogated by Peter Wright (of Spycatcher infamy) and harrassed into committing suicide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Floud

You may be thinking of one or both of these

(Thanks for the reminder PN - I''d forgotten that book until your post)

It would have been entirely consistent for Healey to have been a covert CP member and also a medal winning pongo; during that period the Soviets were our allies - or at least, were fighting our enemies.

Not covert. It was entirely respectable to prefer communism to fascism during the Spanish Civil War, widely seen as a rehearsal for the French one. Attlee found it necessary to expel Stafford Cripps from the Labour Party in 1938 for over-enthusiasm for a Popular Front of all Left (= anti-facist) parties. Not readmitted to Labour until 1945: Churchill appointed him Minister of Aircraft Production, where almost his last contract award was to Preston to start Petter off on (to be) Canberra. As Chancellor, paying for it all, he was part of Attlee's Cabinet decisions to initiate the British Bomb (1/47, though excluded from the innermost circle), and in April,1948 to accept the Soviet Threat and Task (thus fund) Staffs to slow Sov. armour on the Luneberg Plain. On thus, to NATO, in which, again, Cripps, was involved. Red: 1936: OK; Red 1948, not. (There's a quote in the sense: if you are not Left in your 20s you have no heart; if still Left in your 40s, no head).

In 1948 the communists were getting elected in to executive positions in the Unions. Dennis Healey, then head of the International Department of the Labour Party was adept at passing annonymous reports from the Foreign Office Information Research Department to trades unions and other sections of the labour movement -p.407 The Defence of the Realm - Christopher Andrew

PN - you beat me to it. I was going to suggest that all the conspiracy theorists should read Chris Andrew's excellent (and official) history of the Security Service, know by lesser churls as MI-5.

Having said that, a relative who was a senior 'wheel' in the Chevaline development in the 1960s has categorically stated that they had been instructed by the Programme Director not to pass any sensitive 'special' material to Dennis Healey's office, becasue of Communist links. But, as Sir Humphrey Appleby stated:
Edited to add: Fellow PPruners should take with a grain of salt anything written by either Chapman Pincher or Peter Wright. Both were fantacists who did the public and political image of the intelligence community grave harm.

Chapman Pincher! That rings a bell. They did a one off trial rear facing ejection from a Valiant in the early 60s.. CP got hold of this and he wrote a premonition that must have been composed after a hefty liquid lunch. He forcast that Comets and Brittanias would be fitted with rows of these seats and paratroopers would be fired in broadsides from them into action.
The laughing in the Air Ministry was heard in both the War Office and the Admiralty.

FED, but you forgot to mention where the liquid lunch was served.

Press baiting was a popular sport in the main bar of the RAF Club in he days when liquid lunches were the norm and many MoD wallahs had virtual digs in the Club.

Points awarded no doubt if your line was swallowed and appeared in the following day's paper. Also known as Teddy baiting as he was one of the main targets.:}

'Teddy' Donaldson baiting at the RAF Club was indeed a well-known sport, so one of my bosses once related and the results often made interesting reading in the national chip-wrappers!

For younger readers, 'Teddy' was Air Commodore Edward "Teddy" Mortlock Donaldson CB CBE DSO AFC*, a WW2 ace, CO of the RAF's first jet squadron and the former holder of the world air speed record in a Meteor IV, who later became the air correspondent for the Daily Torygraph.

I'm sure the sneaky old bugger actually knew he was being spoofed, but the odd comment in the paper served to keep him popular amongst the MoD-box inmates.

Fellow PPruners should take with a grain of salt anything written by either Chapman Pincher or Peter Wright. Both were fantacists who did the public and political image of the intelligence community grave harm.


That book by Leigh about "The Wilson Plot" does a pretty good job of outing Peter Wright as the uncontrollable lying conniving conspiracy schemer he really was. By implication Leigh also destroys much of Pincher's work as well - as Wright was one of Pincher's major sources
I suspect Leigh probably also has inaccuracies - but its interesting to read as a counterbalance to the raving hysteria of "Spycatcher", and Pincher's related offerings.