Women of the cold war
 

Interesting feature on BBC News website

The British women who secretly served in the Cold War - BBC News

What an appallingly ignorant confusion of the roles of the ROTOR system and ROC.

For information the display in the well was produced by the Kelvin Hughes PDU system. It was automatically developed and projected upwards with a 1 minute delay and the plotters then pushed their blocks around on top of the radar “blips”, negating the need for local tellers sitting at consoles. That may seem an excessive delay, but it was faster than manual telling which still took place from the remote radar heads at the R1 and R2 bunkers to the MRS in the R3 bunkers.

Ironically it was the plotting table which was still in place in the well at Buchan twenty years later and still used as a back-up to the GL161 computerised system.

Radar - Subterranea Britannica

Subterranea Britannica: Research Study Group: Sites: RAF Holmpton GCI Rotor Radar Station

And no discussion of women the RAF ground environment can ever neglect to mention Air Commodore “Aunt” Joan Hopkins.

My step-mother was a flying officer at Holmpton in the early 1960's.

Or Air Commodore Jayne Millington.

Aunty Joan - best Boss I ever had. What a top person.

They also served ...............

The thousands of women [I prefer ladies but............] who died a little death every time the hooter went. Was it a Minival? A Maxeval? TACEVAL? ACTIVE EDGE?

Or had the balloon gone up?

The wives in BFG were advised to have a suitcase packed against the day that the jolly green coaches headed for the Channel Ports.

The Ladies of the Cold War!



PS sorry that I am not knowledgeable enough on Bomber Command alert names.

They used to call one of the WAAF's I knew, the three minute warning...... but I do not know why ;)

Didn't they actually try that out at Gut on one exercise and the local German population panicked and started to follow them?

That happened at Laarbruch, (Weeze). :-)

Thanks for the correction :)

Let's not forget the "wives of"...... not all would be packed off westwards.

There were lists of those with useful skills - medical that I knew of - doctors, nurses and paramedics, who would NOT be going home......

Anf then there was the list of pets ...... who weren't going home for slightly different reasons!

And don't forget the wives and mothers who had the black saloon turn up at the door.

Yes, happened in the early 70s and caused a bit of a stir!! After that, practice evacuations did not involve the off-station MQs and the "evacuation" consisted of a few wagons doing a quick circuit of the countryside via Marienfeld, Niehorst and Blankenhagen. I was a lowly SAC at the time and the word was there were a few interviews without coffee down at The Big House after the dust had settled.

Wimmin? Cold War?

You don't know my first wife.

Was also tried at Gut, coaches rolled up to the Marienfeld quarters, cue chaos. (IIRC!!) it was 34ish years ago.

PM

Good grief. Sounds like history repeating itself. I'm pretty sure the first evacuation that excited the local population was in 1969/70 - the brain cells are a bit fuzzy on the exact date. I do remember on subsequent exercises, when it came to the evacuation phase, it was CPX'd to avoid repeating the previous embarrassment. After a few more exercises, the di-staff got a bit braver and a few representative vehicles were allowed to do a quick circuit of the local countryside.

IIRC, prior notice of station exercises was published in the local press to prevent another panic.

I wonder what local populations thought with sirens going off. At Warrington in particular the village was cheek by jowl with the quarters and got the full sound effects. Generation and dispersal was deadly serious and conducted with complete news blackout, no friendly PRO calming the local populace.

I was at Gutersloh with my wife and 4 childers when the excitement as described above was on. I am unsure if it was separate from, or intrinsic to, an evaluation.

If the latter, then 19 squadron scrambling would have set nerves jangling: the locals were accustomed to a 2-ship, but big fly for survivals were unusual. Noisy Fun though.

The callout siren for Gutersloh's MQs at Harsewinkel was actually the town's Fire station siren. The locals were remarkably tolerant in view of the fact that the damned thing was often going off at all hours of the night.

The deployment kit was always either being packed, unpacked or actually in use. Some happy days, but it did all get a bit extreme at times and I'm very glad I'll never have to wear an AR5 respirator or charcoal suit again.

Never say never Shy mon brave ......

...... do you ever visit Salisbury.........?

I always found the Cold War when I came home after a mess function at 3am!