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For educational purposes

At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world came closer than it has ever come to all-out nuclear war.

As the situation worsened, Britain's war cabinet made preparations to evacuate to 'Turnstile', the top secret nuclear bunker tunnelled deep under the Wiltshire hills.

From here, they controlled the RAF's nuclear bombers, which were fully armed and standing by at 4 minute readiness.

This is the story of just how close those bombers came to taking off.
Transcript
00:00October the 15th 1962 the first day in a two-week crisis that brought the world closer than it has
00:16ever been to all-out nuclear war this was the day that US reconnaissance photographs
00:23revealed Russian medium-range missile sites in Cuba
00:26if these installations were operational nearly every city in America would be within range of
00:36Soviet nuclear attack president Kennedy and his military advisors agonized over the best course
00:45of action with US forces ready to invade the island
00:55superpower tension reached an all-time high in Britain the V force nuclear deterrence well-practiced
01:06procedures were swinging into action bomber bases were sealed off by armed patrols and put on maximum
01:14alert hydrogen bombs were transported to the RAF stations from the top-secret storage facility
01:22at folding worth north of Lincoln as the crisis deepened the Vulcan Victor and Valiant V bombers
01:30were armed and stood combat ready just over 1,000 miles to the east Soviet medium and intermediate
01:39ballistic missiles were being prepared for launch reaching the speed of Mach 4 these missiles could
01:49strike the bomber bases in as little as 15 minutes Britain's early warning radar would have detected an
02:00attack a mere four minutes before UK targets would have been hit
02:08to increase their chances of being far enough away from the nuclear blast to survive
02:12the bombers were equipped with a mass rapid startup facility where all four engines and electrical avionics
02:19would come to life almost instantly by pressing a single button in the cockpit
02:23this allowed a scramble takeoff in just under two minutes
02:30by Friday October the 26th 1962 aircrew were camped in caravans next to their aircraft poised for the alert klaxon
02:44in 1945 the new labor prime minister Clement Attlee knew full well that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had changed the world
02:51in 1945 the new labor prime minister Clement Attlee knew full well that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had changed the world
03:07changed the world
03:14Oh
03:16home
03:19home
03:21home
03:22home
03:23home
03:24home
03:33In weeks of the attack, Attlee had concluded that in the face of such awesome destructive
03:37power, the provision of air raid precautions and shelters would be futile.
03:44The answer, he felt, to an atomic bomb dropped on London would be dropping an atomic bomb
03:48on the enemy's greatest city.
03:52How Britain was going to acquire the means to retaliate was another question there.
03:58In the aftermath of World War II, the country's economy was stretched to the limits.
04:04On top of this, less than a year later, the US Congress passed the McMahon Act.
04:10This forbade the disclosure of nuclear information to any foreign power.
04:16Even former A-bomb collaborators, Britain and Canada, were denied access.
04:22If Britain was to have defensive atomic weapons, it was clear it would have to design, test
04:27and build them on its own.
04:32I think it was important that we had our own independent deterrent.
04:36We were well aware that Russia was just over the horizon, and Stalin was still there, and
04:42his avowed intent was, in fact, to spread communism.
04:51By January 1947, Attlee authorized the manufacture of a British bomb.
04:56Without America's industrial know-how, this was going to be a costly and difficult process.
05:03Added to this would be the expense of developing a whole new generation of jet bombers needed to deliver the British weapon.
05:12Whilst the RAF had squadrons of advanced fighters, larger jet aircraft were still years away.
05:19Undaunted, the Air Ministry drew up the specifications for a strategic jet bomber.
05:26It called for a fast, high altitude, medium bomber for the purpose of long-range conventional and nuclear strikes.
05:35Three separate British aircraft manufacturers, Vickers Armstrong, AV Rowe and Hanley Page, undertook the task of designing and building aircraft that would meet these requirements.
05:48The result would be aircraft that would set new standards in aviation design, manufacture and performance.
05:55The V bombers.
05:59V bombers.
06:19The first V bomber to be completed was the Vickers Valiant.
06:22A comparatively simple design, the development process of this aeroplane had been very rapid.
06:32It bridged the gap between old piston-powered technology and the more revolutionary schemes that Avro and Hanley Page were working on.
06:39At the time, this suited the defence planners very well as the first British atom bomb was now well on the way.
06:48The Vickers design team had developed a long-range bomber which incorporated advanced design features, including power-assisted flight controls and swept-back wings mounted on the shoulder of the fuselage, allowing room for a sizeable bomb bay.
07:06With its maximum ceiling of 54,000 feet and high speed of 554 miles per hour, no defensive armament was considered necessary.
07:22The Valiant made its maiden flight in 1951 and became the RAF's first nuclear bomber when Britain's A-bombs were brought into service four years later.
07:35Our world status was definitely raised. America had the bomb, we had the bomb, Russia had the bomb and that was really it at the time.
07:47So it meant we were a big player in the world.
07:50By this time though, the Americans had successfully tested a new type of weapon that took mass destruction to a whole new level.
08:00The hydrogen bomb.
08:10The thermonuclear technology it used led to a device hundreds of times more powerful than any atomic bomb.
08:18President Truman's momentous decision to make the hydrogen bomb rocks the world.
08:27The news is blacked out behind the Iron Curtain, but in the United States headlines from coast to coast carry the President's announcement.
08:34Shortly afterwards, the Soviets followed suit.
08:46It was clear that if Britain wanted a credible independent deterrent, it would now need to produce its own H-bomb.
08:52The British government were determined to be regarded as a serious nuclear player.
09:03They were also hoping that membership of the H-bomb club would lead to the future restoration of Anglo-American collaboration on nuclear weapons.
09:11But for the deterrent of the atomic bomb, it is certain that Europe would have been communized like Czechoslovakia and London under bombardment some time ago.
09:30Back in power in the early fifties, Winston Churchill authorized scientists at the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment to set to work.
09:40In November 1957, the result was ready for testing.
09:47That month, a Valiant released a one megaton thermonuclear device over Christmas Island in the South Pacific.
09:55The Valiant was followed into service by the remarkably advanced Avro Vulcan.
10:14The designer of the Lancaster, Roy Chadwick, was working on the design of a 100-foot span delta as early as 1947.
10:33Inspired by German wartime experiments, he envisaged an aeroplane that would have a sufficiently thick wing to house fuel and engines.
10:43A slight bulge in the midsection would accommodate the cockpit and bombs.
10:48Its delta wing configuration promised significant advantages.
10:52Huge storage capacity in the inboard section of the wing, allowing for powerful engines.
10:57And good handling characteristics at both ends of the speed range.
11:01In this tunnel, speeds up to Mach 1.6 can be reached, and Avro's are now building a third wind tunnel for research into Mach numbers as high as 3.5.
11:15This was groundbreaking aerodynamics though, and before the prototype could be designed, a number of experimental one third scale delta wing aircraft would have to be test flown.
11:25It was at this stage, early in 1950, that Mr Rowley Falk joined the company.
11:30Mr Falk probably knows more about delta wing aircraft than any other pilot.
11:35He began development flights at a crucial stage.
11:38It was the first time any delta wing aircraft had flown in Britain.
11:42And it aroused great curiosity, which wasn't entirely confined to the aeronautical profession.
11:54The first Vulton flew from here, piloted by our chief superintendent, who was of test flying, Rowley Falk.
12:01He came out of the building here, pointed over to the flight sheds,
12:06taxied down the runway, turned it round in all his checks.
12:12698, take off.
12:15698, Woodford Tower, cleared for take off.
12:20Okay, by half way down the runway, it was airborne.
12:25It was airborne for two and a quarter hours.
12:28It stopped the whole of Cheshire, the traffic, everything, ground to a standstill, because they'd never seen anything like this at all.
12:38They thought it was only around the space.
12:40It really was terrific.
12:42It was a terrific day in aviation.
12:44The remarkable qualities of this design soon became apparent.
12:53The manoeuvrability of the aeroplane was quite remarkable.
12:56The great wing area meant that at high altitude, the aeroplane was still extremely manoeuvrable.
13:02And when set against fighters of the day, such as the lightning, we can easily outturn the fighters without any trouble at all.
13:13He only, of course, has little wings that are highly loaded, and is less able to turn in the thin air of more than 40,000 feet.
13:20If one compares the manoeuvrability of the Vulcan with other bombers such as the American ones, perhaps the B-52, there is just no comparison at all.
13:35The Vulcan had almost fighter-style performance and turn rays, which was quite sparkling by the standards of the day.
13:43He came over the new assembly, that's the name of our workshops here at Woodford, and he rolled it like a fighter.
13:55We couldn't believe it that such a massive aircraft could be rolled, and he smashed all the glass in the roof of the new assembly,
14:02and it was like that for a long time, all taped up, till the roof was redone.
14:06I'd never forgot that, and even the crowd that was here around, all the workforce thought it was terrific.
14:13Each aircraft is built up from over 100,000 separate parts.
14:26The first production Mark 1s were delivered in July 1956.
14:31This was to be the world's first Delta Wing jet bomber.
14:34As well as a high degree of manoeuvrability, the Vulcan showed an exceptional rate of climb and descent.
14:47It could lose 20,000 feet in 90 seconds flat, and recover to level flight in only 1,500 feet.
14:53The crew of five were accommodated in a double-deck pressurized compartment.
15:06Pilots sat side by side on ejection seats, while the two navigators and air electronics officer faced backwards below and behind them.
15:13An enduring fault of the Vulcan was that in any emergency, the three rear crew would have to clamber through a hatch in the floor.
15:23Few escaped from the accidents during the Vulcan's development.
15:26The third strategic bomber delivered to the RAF was the Handley Page Victor.
15:38As the Handley Page Victor takes the air, we see a new shape rise in the sky.
15:43At all speeds near the ground, the Crescent Winged Aircraft controls easily enough to please the most exacting pilot.
16:02Notice the dive brakes, which on the Victor control the glide path without any change of trim.
16:07And now the Victor comes into land, and one of its most important features comes into play.
16:20With hands off the controls, the pilot brings it in on the approach.
16:24It flattens out and lands without the pilot touching the controls.
16:29An amazing and almost unbelievable characteristic of this Crescent Winged Aircraft.
16:33The wing joined the fuselage well forward, allowing the weapons bay to be completely unobstructed.
16:45This took up most of the fuselage, and was almost twice the size of the Vulcans.
16:50As an alternative to the projected 10,000-pound nuclear weapon, it could carry 35 1,000-pound bombs, as opposed to the Vulcans' 21.
17:03The Handley-Page design team had also used some revolutionary construction methods.
17:10Most of the structure utilized the new technique of bonding two sheets on either side of a metal honeycomb core.
17:17This metal sandwich was extremely strong and light, and also gave very smooth external surfaces, reducing drag.
17:23The Victor became the largest aircraft in the world to break the sound barrier.
17:30Like the Avro Vulcan, the Victor was found to be capable of performance and aerobatics that belied its size.
17:37At Farnborough, it performed slow rolls and loops.
17:44Avro and Handley-Page always thought there'd be a fly-off between the Vulcan and the Victor.
17:52This led to intense competition between the two companies.
17:55Both aeronautical firms could ill afford to lose the production contract.
18:07Although the Vulcan and Victor were totally different aircraft, the RAF was never able to choose between them,
18:13and both aircraft went on to have long and distinguished careers in the service.
18:16With V-bombers coming on stream in significant numbers,
18:23Harold MacMillan became the first fully thermonuclear-armed Prime Minister.
18:27The early sixties were to be an extremely dangerous period for the whole planet.
18:54For the first time, the collective US and Soviet nuclear arsenal had the explosive potential to wipe out life on Earth.
19:15And the events that could trigger this nuclear Armageddon seem to be occurring with increasing frequency.
19:21The RAF was rapidly approaching the peak in its potency.
19:28Each bomber carried a single H-bomb with the yield of one megaton.
19:35The equivalent amount of TNT loaded on a goods train, travelling at 50 miles per hour, would take six hours to pass by.
19:48Bomber Command, with its force of 140 aircraft, now had the potential striking power of millions of World War II Lancasters.
19:58What wasn't fully appreciated by the British defence planners though, was the pace of technological advance that Soviets would achieve in their missile design and construction.
20:14Unexpectedly rapid breakthroughs in solid rocket motors and the development of miniaturized components for guidance systems and warheads were beginning to make the V-Force's free-fall bomb system look increasingly out of date.
20:28And most worryingly of all, the numbers of surface-to-air missiles that could reach high altitude bombers were rising all the time.
20:42It was clear the V-Force would have to modify its tactics if it was going to continue to be able to penetrate these defences.
20:52An air-launched missile that could be fired at the target from a safer range looked like an answer.
20:57In the late 50s, work started on a stand-off bomb project codenamed Blue Steel.
21:07This weapon to be carried by Vulcans and Victors could be launched 100 miles away from the target.
21:31At 35 feet long, it was as large as a fighter and would require considerable modification to both aircraft.
21:47When launched, its advanced onboard computer that was impervious to enemy jamming would fly the missile on a predetermined flight path to the aiming point.
21:55Within a specified range, the second rocket engine would fire, increasing the projectile speed to Mach 3.
22:07Once over the target, the engine would cut and Blue Steel, with its one megaton warhead, would descend and detonate.
22:14Meanwhile, the Americans, with their massive force of B-52s, had the same need.
22:29On January 5th, a major milestone was marked with the rollout of the first production B-52H.
22:36This model bomber is being factory produced as a sky-bolt carrier.
22:40The US solution was the more ambitious air-launched system, Skybolt.
22:49This weapon was intended to have a range of 1,150 miles.
22:53That would allow a bomber to fire the missile without even entering enemy airspace.
22:59With the British H-bomb tests and Macmillan's tenacious diplomacy,
23:03the Americans were persuaded to resume the special relationship between the two nations
23:07and several Vulcans were adapted to take the new US weapon.
23:12With Skybolt being significantly smaller than Blue Steel,
23:15Vulcans would be able to carry one missile under each wing.
23:18The Skybolt program, though, was to be dogged with technical problems,
23:31and failing to perform in tests was finally cancelled by US Congress in 1962.
23:36With Blue Steel still being perfected, the looming Cuban crisis would test the V-Force to its limits.
23:52The recent success of Sputnik had stepped up the pace of superpower missile development and the arms race in general.
23:58The nuclear test program of both nations was proceeding at a frantic pace, leading to international fears about the effect of this saber-rattling.
24:07Against this volatile background, the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane in May 1960.
24:15The following year, in response to the West refusing to withdraw their armed forces from Berlin,
24:23the Warsaw Pact built the Berlin Wall.
24:26The readiness of the V-Force was constantly tested.
24:30Temperature selector, normal temperature control switch.
24:33When we were scrambled, there were occasions that we didn't know whether it was the real thing or not.
24:37Very often, we would be asleep, and came the call over the tannoy, and we would sprint for the aircraft.
24:46And the aircraft was always prepared carefully by us before we went.
24:51In other words, all your straps were laid out, you had your helmet plugged in and ready to go,
24:57and you had a strict drill, which we practiced a lot, to get on board in the right order, start the engine, throttles open and away.
25:07In the autumn of 1961, the Soviets shattered a recently agreed testing moratorium with the detonation of a monster H-bomb.
25:20To this day, its colossal yield of 57 megatons has never been exceeded.
25:26In response, the Americans immediately resumed their testing program with an extensive series of high-profile thermonuclear shots.
25:34The uneasy peace between east and west had never looked so shaky.
25:41Far worse was still to come, though.
25:43On Monday, October the 15th, 1962, an American U-2 photographed SS-4 nuclear missile launching sites in Cuba, a mere 90 miles from the coast of Florida.
25:59Florida.
26:06President Kennedy was informed the following morning, and assembled his military advisers.
26:10Most of them recommended an air strike to take out the Cuban bases, followed by an invasion.
26:20Kennedy immediately mobilized a vast army of men and material.
26:26The invasion plan called for the largest drop of paratroopers since D-Day.
26:39Strategic Air Command's fleet of well over a thousand B-52 and B-47 bombers stood at DEFCON-2, the highest military alert short of all-out war.
26:49An eighth of these bombers were armed and in the air at all times, prepared to drop nuclear weapons on targets in Cuba and the Soviet Union.
27:00Pre-launch procedures were underway for the 172 intercontinental ballistic missiles ranged against the Russians.
27:07More than 100,000 combat-ready infantrymen were deployed to ports along the east coast.
27:14And a huge Navy fleet, moments away from battle stations, was steaming through the international waters of the Caribbean.
27:22The American war machine was at its highest state of readiness, only awaiting the go signal from the White House.
27:29The Pentagon estimated that 18 and a half thousand Americans would be killed or wounded in the first 10 days of the battle.
27:43This influenced Kennedy's decision to forego an airstrike.
27:48Instead, the Americans imposed a blockade encircling the island.
27:51The dangerousness of the situation was exacerbated by primitive international telecommunications.
28:02Khrushchev was unable to gain instant contact with his commanders in Cuba.
28:08Commanders that, unbeknown to the Americans, controlled tactical nuclear weapons that they were authorized to use if US forces invaded.
28:16The famous hotline directly linking the two superpower leaders was still a year away, preventing the possibility of direct dialogue between them.
28:27The line between London and Washington, though, was in frequent use as the Prime Minister urged the Americans to exercise restraint.
28:35This is the destructive power we pray God we will never be called upon to hurl at any nation.
28:55But should it become necessary, let us not hesitate because it is foreign to our nature to use the power which has been given us.
29:02Harold Macmillan, as he reflected later, was about to have the worst few days of his life, events that would come back to him as recurring nightmares in later years.
29:15He was in charge of Britain's thermonuclear bombers and ordered them to alert condition 3, fully armed and at 15-minute readiness.
29:32He was determined not to give the order to go to condition 2.
29:35This would have meant the disbursement of the H-bomb armed V-force to bases all over the British Isles.
29:46An act, it was thought, that would send out dangerous signals about Britain's preparations for an attack.
29:51As the crisis approached its climax during the last weekend in October, contingency arrangements were made to transport Macmillan and his war cabinet away from London to turnstile.
30:07This was the codename given to the top secret World War III bunker, 250 feet below Corsham in Wiltshire.
30:22A special train would whisk ministers and military top brass away from Paddington station on the western main line.
30:37Just before Bath, the train would branch off into a tunnel that led straight to an underground station in the bunker.
30:43After a short walk along tunnels cut through the limestone, the war cabinet would enter the operations room.
30:54It is from here, with Soviet missiles only minutes away, that the Prime Minister would have ordered alert condition 1.
31:02This called for the annihilation of 30 to 40 Soviet cities with an assumed casualty figure of at least 16 million.
31:10Big cities like Moscow and Leningrad would get two or three H-bombs each.
31:20Six clock, start one. One day field pump.
33:35Their crews would each have an all-too-vivid idea of what was about to happen to their families and ground staff on the bomber bases they'd left behind.
33:43An hour after take-off, the V-bombers would be at 56,000 feet over the Baltic, approaching their start lines.
34:04The designated position and time for the start of the attack.
34:08It's important that all the attacks are coordinated.
34:12You don't want to be going through somebody else's bomb blast, for instance.
34:15So they have to be coordinated.
34:19I think we'd all been very frightened, that's for sure.
34:22But nevertheless, I'm sure we would have done it.
34:24From here, they would fly carefully pre-planned routes, contrive to avoid Soviet defenses for the longest possible time.
34:33At predetermined positions over Soviet territory, radar-jamming electronic countermeasures would be activated.
35:00The ECM was very advanced for the time.
35:07The previous year, V-bombers had easily got through American defenses in a NATO training exercise.
35:12It worked by emitting radio interference, or noise, designed to jam Soviet radar.
35:23At that time, the Soviets placed great emphasis on controlling their fighter operations rigidly from the ground.
35:31Their pilots were instructed where to go, when to change height, and when to fire.
35:36So blacking out the ground radar stations was an effective defensive tactic.
35:52Soviet controllers would attempt to position a fighter no more than five miles behind the bomber,
35:57allowing the pilot to make visual contact.
36:00Four VHF channels were used to communicate with fighter aircraft.
36:06V-bombers were equipped with a jammer that transmitted a high-pitched screech on those frequencies.
36:12In spite of these defenses, some fighters would inevitably get through.
36:17The V-bomber crews then had to rely on maneuvers to try to avoid being shot down.
36:21The Vulcan, in particular, was very adept at this.
36:27In the very thin air at high altitude, its large wings were still extremely efficient,
36:32allowing it to out-turn any attacking fighter.
36:35If air-to-air missiles were fired, the final resort would be to release bundles of tiny foil strips.
36:42This would confuse the fighter's radar guidance system.
36:45Those V-bombers that survived fighter interception would then enter missile-controlled sectors.
36:59With Blue Steel still not ready, the bombers were equipped only with free-fought Yellow Sun H-bombs
37:05and would have to fly all the way to their targets, right through these SAM zones.
37:09Crews were briefed on the location of most surface-to-air missile sites,
37:17but there would have been too many to avoid them all.
37:22Radar detection equipment on board the aircraft would indicate when radars were scanning in their direction.
37:29When these signals were detected, the air electronics officer would try to jam the missile radar
37:34and feed it false targets while the pilot conducted evasive maneuvers.
37:39The main Soviet SAM missile needed 60 seconds of unjammed data to lock on.
38:01The V-bombers that successfully penetrated these defenses
38:04would now have split up to fly towards their respective targets.
38:09At 60 miles from weapons release, navigation and bombing computers would be updated by the radar operator
38:17who would now be able to see the aiming point on his screen.
38:22When we got near our target, we'd start our bombing run on the specific heading.
38:28It would be a radar run.
38:30The bomb aimer would then take over on the autopilot and we'd zip down all these blinds
38:37over every window in the aircraft so that we wouldn't get blinded by the flash.
38:42Two miles short of the target, bomb doors would automatically open.
38:53The city directly below was about to befall the terrible fate experienced by London,
38:59Manchester and Glasgow a couple of hours before.
39:01In an instant, the temperature at ground zero would have risen to one million degrees centigrade.
39:17A crater of a mile wide and 150 feet deep would have been gouged out.
39:25Underneath the two mile wide fireball, all structures and anybody in them would have been vaporised.
39:31And buildings seven miles from the centre of the burst would have been reduced to rubble by the blast wave.
39:45The bomber had just over one minute to get clear.
39:49The escape manoeuvre employed was aerobatic.
39:52Two slacker turn would be useless as all anti-blast measures required the aircraft to be tail-on to the explosion.
39:57After this, crews were expected to try to get home.
40:03They were even given return routes that were every bit as detailed as the outbound legs.
40:08It was never planned to be a one-way mission.
40:11The object was always to get back to base if possible, because we might have to be re-armed and might have to make a second strike.
40:22Had this unthinkable scenario ever become a reality, however, there would have been little or nothing for the bomber crews to return to.
40:29We were well aware of the effects that our weapons would have on the targets, and also the effect that the enemy's weapons would have back home.
40:41And certainly we were fairly pessimistic about having anywhere to land when we came back, or even having our country to come back to.
40:50But you get used to all sorts of things.
40:55By lunchtime, Sunday the 29th of October 1962, the world stepped back from the brink of a nuclear holocaust.
41:13Khrushchev promised that the missile bases in Cuba would be dismantled.
41:16In return, the Americans assured the Soviets that they would not invade the island.
41:31In a further deal, US medium-range missiles stationed in Turkey, only 150 miles from the Soviet border, were discreetly removed.
41:40With that, the most dangerous episode in the history of humankind had come to an end.
41:50I think that the V-Force really did help to keep the peace.
41:54I don't think anyone can deny that the deterrent worked.
41:58The tripwire philosophy, where if Russia attacked, we would go all out, I think was a big deterrent.
42:10At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the RAF's Bomber Command had aircraft at the cutting edge of technology,
42:24operated by a highly trained elite, fully capable of penetrating Soviet defences.
42:31Britain's close proximity to the USSR meant these V-bombers would have been in the first retaliatory strikes on Russian targets.
42:40...
42:42Fortunately for the world, Khrushchev backed down over Cuba at the 11th hour.
42:47Perhaps the presence of the V-Force played some part in his decision.
42:59...
42:59Oh, my God.
43:29Oh, my God.
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