Cuban Missile Crisis

David Morton

Lifetime Supporter
It was 50 years ago today when a U2 took vertical and oblique photographs over Cuba and proved the existance of .......... Well - you know the rest.
Were you alive then? Did you have any relatives that were involved?
Did it have any repercussions in your world?

I was 15 1/2 yrs old and living in Western Germany. The subsequent Missile Crisis of October 16th onwards was a massively traumatic event and we were trying to get on transport to the Hook of Holland before Armageddon arrived in the shape of Soviet tanks that were massing on the border just 70 miles ( 3 hours) away. We were advised that when called forward, we could only walk out of the house and close the door but no luggage except toiletries. If armageddon happened, all of the Hunter aeroplanes would launch and probably only achieve a maximum of two sorties.
Alongside this was the Thor ICBM sites with their 1.44 megaton warhead and throughout the crisis all 59 serviceable missiles were erect,fueled, targeted,
and ready for the codes from the inner safe.
This was Kruschev trying to take it to the brink and the Kennedy presidency seeing Kruschevs cards.



When we finally returned to the UK one year later, it seemed a majority of the civilian population knew virtually nothing of what went on in spite of living amongst the heaviest concentration of V bombers
in the UK - Lincolnshire.

At the former RAF Hemswell there is a talk about Operation Emily (the Thors) on this Monday evening (15th. October)
as part of Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire's week of the Cuban Crisis.
Other events are :
The events to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis are now confirmed.
15th October 2012
A talk by John Boyes about project EMILY. This lecture is being held at Hemswell Court at 7pm. Tickets cost £5 per person and include tea/coffee.
16th October 2012
Starting from Hemswell Court, this is a coach tour of significant Cold War venues in Lincolnshire. We will be visiting Caistor, Faldingworth, Dunholm Lodge and RAF Scampton Museum. This full day tour includes lunch and is priced at £15 per person.
20th October 2012- Cold War focus at Newark Air Museum
There will be a series of talks focusing on the equipment of the Cold War in Lincolnshire with an opportunity to view the Vulcan from inside the cockpit, learn more about the Bloodhound Surface to Air Missile and hear about the role of the Royal Observer Corps. Tickets cost £15 per person
21st October 2012
Heritage Lincolnshire have arranged for the former Royal Observer Corps underground post at Holbeach to be opened up for visits. For more information or to book your place please contact Penny Ward on 01529 461499 or email [email protected]
27th October 2012
We will be hosting a series of talks in the Hardy Lecture Theatre in Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln. The talks will be by those who have studied the Doomsday events of half a century ago and we will have the opportunity to listen to those who were serving on the Thor sites and Vulcan bases in Lincolnshire. A fascinating day with lunch included - £15 per person.
Places on these events are strictly limited and booking early is recommended to avoid disappointment. To book your place today or for more information please call Phil Bonner on 01529 308135 or email [email protected] or Debbie Roberts on 01529 308172
 

Keith

Moderator
I remember it well, but we had lived through constant nuclear rhetoric for so many years that perhaps we didn't realise this was more than the usual bluster.

I don't think any of us (in my immediate circle) really cared less, and thought that it broke the boredom in a detached sort of way.

I had just started my first job and the sixties in London, was an extremely exciting place for a 16 year old.

Ignorance for me anyway, was bliss. Probably just as well I suppose...
 
well, my mom looks like a bomb expecting me :D
but she had to wait 4 more months to explode...

so no...did not get any of that news, also in those days I guess not many had a TV in Europa? radio's mostly I guess.

of course later I've seen some about that, also movies but those are not that accurate but gave some idea of the tensions.
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
I was in the fifth grade, we had been doing all the duck, cover, who has a bomb shelter stuff, so when the Cuban thing came, here in the US, it was a very big deal...........100% news coverage.

I remember, on the big day, they wheeled a TV into our calss room, we watched as the Soviet ship headed toward the US destroyers. Very very scary!

They kept saying that if the ship crosses a certin line, the US Navy has orders to sink it, with that..........................nuclear war!

This was all live, on TV in our classroom!

A very, very scarry day!
 

Charlie Farley

Supporter
There was also a VERY close call in february 1973, little known about.
SAAC's intelligence coupled with USAF overflights of the USSR coincided with their radar in Greenland picking up so called ICBM 'readiness' activity.
I was at the British Army headquarters in Rheindahlen, all hell broke loose for about 36 hours. My Father had to go to RAF Bruggen to oversee rapid repairs of the runways at there and RAF Wildenrath & Gutersloh.
Thank god they sorted the mess out.
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
And then there was 83.

Sometime in 83, a new Soviet early warning system picked up an incoming American strike of 5 missiles -- it was an error, but the system clearly showed an inbound strike.

The Soviet missle officer refused to launch, or report it up the chain for fear he woudl be overriden, since it made no sense. No first strike would contain just five missles, and some radar data didn't support what the system was saying.

It was later determined to be a glitch.

Later that year, the hardline Andropov administration viewed a NATO exercise as a precursor to war and some in the admin advocated a first launch preemptive strike.

Different times. Almost makes Al Qauida seem like child's play.
 

Keith

Moderator
Many years later, I discovered interesting and vastly different approaches to the nuclear paradox of that era. In late '80's in the USA, whilst developing a former movie theatre, I discovered a public fallout shelter beneath the building. It still had everything including hard tack, canned water and all kinds of instructions of how to "survive"

Five years later in the UK beneath a tall office block next to Basingstoke Station I found a fully complete unused Nuclear Bunker to house some 500 people in barracks, with air filtration sleeping quarters, kitchens and a small hospital. This was one of the very secret Regional Government Centres in the event of a Nuclear War and it had been built under the noses of the local population without their knowledge in the '50's and was a true "Bunker" in the fullest sense.

Clearly, in the USA, the population had some kind of Govt promoted "survival" strategy (however naive) but in the UK, there were no such public facilities, only survival centres for a regional macro governmental infrastructure, and presumably armed guards on the gates to prevent the plebs from entering.
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
Yep, at least on the US side. We had a "civil defense force" or some such with fallout shelters in the basements of most public buildings, the government encouraged (may have even provided tax breaks for) families to build back yard fall out shelters, we had documentaries and public service clips showing how to survive a nuclear attack and so on. There was an attempt to help the US population survive, although it was laughable in some cases. For example, and Jim and others may remember this, but we literally had "nuclear attack" drills in elementary school well into the 70s where we would go sit in the hallways wtih a book on our head for 15 minutes as practice for surviving a nuclear attack. Crazy stuff.

Interesting the UK had no illusions about the potential effects of a nuke attack on the populace.

One other story. In West Virginia -- place called White Sulphur Springs -- there is a grand old resort called the Greenbrier. Huge place, in the mountains, beautiful old hotel and golf course.

Buried under it was secret bunker where Congress was to go in the event of a nuclear war. For the entire cold war into the 90s I think the public didn't know of its existence.

Crazy times, that Cold War.
 

Keith

Moderator
It is quite possible I would have thought, to have engendered massive civilian unrest amongst the US population if they perceived that nuclear war was not survivable, or perhaps the Constitution in some way guaranteed them at least a measure of Govt responsibility, whereas in the UK, we were all cannon fodder.

My father was a "Civil Defence" Warden, and I remember attending many drills where we had to lay around covered in soot and rasberry jam to simulate horrific radiation burns. Our "shelter" was a cupboard under the stairs with newspaper shoved in the cracks and a mattress against the door.

In any event, I think the most amazing thing was, nobody really cared about the likelihood of mass destruction . There was the burgeoning disarmament group but we dismissed them as some kind of lefty loonies, but in the main, the matter wasn't discussed at any level that I remember.

Perhaps we were all bomb happy from two world wars - who knows.
 

Jeff Young

GT40s Supporter
I would say it was pretty much the same if not more so in the US. Republicans and Democrats alike were gung ho anti-communists; in fact most were in a competition to be MORE anti-communist than the other.

Bomb shelters and huge defense budgets and civil defense were all part of the war on godless communism. Of course, little did we know that the Russkies feared us just as much as we feared them, and for the most part will less interested in world domination as they were ensuring they didn't get invaded again for the 3rd time in 100 years and 4th in 200.

I would say in the US the fear of mass destruction was just subsumed in teh idea that we were all doing our duty in trying to save the world for democracy and capitalism, and like you said was the case in the UK, the anti-war/anti-nuke folks were truly the looney left who were disavowed by mainstream Democrats.

Politically and socially, the 50s and early 60s were a pretty homogenous time in the US.

That all started to change in the late 60s with the counter culture and social revolution, coupled with the Democratic party's move to the left and the rise of the anti-war movement. I think that was when we first started to question whether "better dead than Red" actually made any sense.
 

David Morton

Lifetime Supporter
R.S.G.
Regional Seats of Government.
Some of them used to have Brand New MT (Military Transport) which was why we used to see M.O.D.Auctions
of new vehicles albeit 15 to 20 years old. They were scrupulously maintained with new tyres and batteries and serviced up the ying yang without ever turning a wheel.
I know where there is such a place right in the middle of Shepherds Bush. I once shredded a map with their locations on - it was classified UK/EO so I should have made a copy.
There is one down in Kent that has been restored and opened up to the public.

UK — WWII & Cold War Tunnels in the White Cliffs of Dover

www.cromwell-intl.com/travel/uk/dover/
First, Dover's relative location along the coastline in Kent: ... It was maintained as an emergency regional seat of government 1963-1984, and some of the lower ...
<LI about="null">Kent Past - Dover Castle

www.kentpast.co.uk/dover_castle.html
Leave your email address to receive Kent Past Times free every month ... These same tunnels became, in the 1960s, a Regional Seat of Government in the ...
 

David Morton

Lifetime Supporter
The next huge milestone is that the weekend in 1962 of the 27th and 28th October, the R.A.F. here in the UK went to the highest alert condition ever since WW II. The V Bombers were loaded with live Blue Danubes, the crews were sitting in the cockpits with the aeroplanes ready for simstart (all 4 together), The Thor missiles
were all stood upright , fuelled, targeted, and holding at three minutes, and the US Army were almost face to face, tank to tank, with the Soviets across the buffer zone and in Eastern Germany (Berlin).
The U.S.A.F. SAC were at Defcon 2 and the remainder of the US forces at Defcon 3. The drama and stress must have been so incredibly high. All of the R.A.F. aircraft in Western Germany were sitting on the taxiways at at the end of the runway ready to go with an eery silence that weekend, punctuated by pilots occasionally jumping out of the cockpit ( full bladders or cramp) ( 36 hours in a fighter cockpit must have been a nightmare).
Kennedy knew that the UK would be destroyed and Kruschevs Russians knew that they could not attack all of the Thor sites before the missiles were launched (Yes - there were Soviets on the ground in the UK ready to do Kruschevs
bidding but not enough to stop at least forty or more of the sixty missiles at 3 minutes readiness to fly).
Having the Thor in the UK meant the U.S.A. really had an ICBM more so than an IRBM ( the launch was a dual key system - the Rocket was R.A.F. and the Warhead was U.S.A.F. so one couldn't fly without the other being present).
One year previously Kruschev had started building his Berlin Wall in 1961 and finished it off with a couple of checkpoints in Berlin where the tanks faced each other , U.S.Army Barrel to Soviet Army Barrel. The images were incredible but that was almost one year before the Cuban Crisis but part of that period was the installation of a direct telephone between the two opposing forces.

That telephone could not have been more crucial than it was that October weekend in 1962.
 

Keith

Moderator
Kennedy knew that the UK would be destroyed

I'm sorry David, that's just not true. We were ready in our below-stairs bunkers hyped up on Spam & Fray Bentos ready to sally forth and attack the Russkis as soon as that dust cloud had settled.

The secret was the wet blanket you see - no radioactive stuff would have ever got past that draped over the 'blast door'.
 
Interesting comparison here.

U.S Government Bomb Shelter
 

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David Morton

Lifetime Supporter
Were you aware that certain foods were dosed with Thyrosafe - I imagine that the goverment were opeing up tins of fray bentos and cream of tomato soup and repackaging them with a dose of Thyrosafe. I doubt they would bother putting in Black Pudding though.
Where did all the tax dollars and pounds end up?
Jimmy Savile might have a clue..........
 
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