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ROYAL AIR FORCE HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL 34 2 The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the contributors concerned and are not necessarily those held by the Royal Air Force Historical Society. First published in the UK in 2005 by the Royal Air Force Historical Society All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. ISSN 1361 4231 Printed by Advance Book Printing Unit 9 Northmoor Park Church Road Northmoor OX29 5UH 3 ROYAL AIR FORCE HISTORICAL SOCIETY President Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Michael Beetham GCB CBE DFC AFC Vice-President Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey KCB CBE AFC Committee Chairman Air Vice-Marshal N B Baldwin CB CBE FRAeS Vice-Chairman Group Captain J D Heron OBE Secretary Group Captain K J Dearman Membership Secretary Dr Jack Dunham PhD CPsychol AMRAeS Treasurer J Boyes TD CA Members Air Commodore H A Probert MBE MA *J S Cox Esq BA MA *Dr M A Fopp MA FMA FIMgt *Group Captain C J Finn MPhil RAF *Wing Commander W A D Carter RAF Wing Commander C Cummings Editor & Publications Wing Commander C G Jefford MBE BA Manager *Ex Officio 4 CONTENTS THE SECRET STATE: OLD AND NEW – Prof Peter Hennessy 6 DISCUSSION 16 THE DAM BUSTERS RAID – SUCCESS OR SIDESHOW? – 21 Wg Cdr T M Webster SUMMARY OF THE MINUTES OF THE EIGHTEENTH 47 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD IN THE ROYAL AIR FORCE CLUB ON 30 JUNE 2004 FEEDBACK 50 OBITUARY – ROY WALKER 52 AN AIRMAN AT ARNHEM – Wg Cdr Geoffrey Richards 53 THE FLIGHT TO THE NORTH – NO 2 SQN’S MOVE FROM 61 FARNBOROUGH TO MONTROSE IN 1913 – Wg Cdr George Wilson THE MALTA AVIATION MUSEUM – Air Chf Mshl Sir 76 Michael Armitage POST WAR AIR SEA RESCUE - THE BELL ROCK 79 INCIDENTS – Donald Smith FRATRICIDE – AN OVERVIEW OF FRIENDLY FIRE 82 INCIDENTS IN THE 20TH CENTURY – Wg Cdr C G Jefford BOOK REVIEWS 114 5 SELECTED ABBREVIATIONS AAA Anti-Aircraft Artillery, aka Flak AFDS Air Fighting Development Squadron ASR Air Sea Rescue AWRE Atomic Weapons Research Establishment BCATP British Commonwealth Air Training Plan CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain GCI Ground Controlled Interception GRP Glass Reinforced Plastic JIC Joint Intelligence Committee MAP Ministry of Aircraft Production MCS Marine Craft Section NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (ie Nazi) ORB Operations Record Book QRA Quick Reaction Alert RNLI Royal National Lifeboat Institution RSL Range Safety Launch SASO Senior Air Staff Officer UAS University Air Squadron 6 THE SECRET STATE: OLD AND NEW Peter Hennessy FBA Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History Queen Mary, University of London My theme for this evening is a poignant one as it links the Cold War ‘secret state,’ constructed, refined and maintained over the forty- or-so years from 1947 to the sudden ending of the great east-west confrontation and, albeit briefly, to present anxieties, drawing a comparison with that huge and unavoidably concealed enterprise and the much more open ‘protective state’ which the government has been building at great speed since the tragedy of 11 September 2001. Why poignant? Because for those like us who spent the bulk of their lives in the shadow of the bomb, that the Cold War ended at all is probably the greatest shared boon of our lifetime. That it finished without global war and nuclear exchange verges on the miraculous. The twentieth century is piled high with the bodies of British dead – but not our half of it. Yet if World War III had come, the body counts within a few hours would have surpassed the great bloodlettings of World Wars I and II by a factor of 10. That we can recollect the Cold War in tranquillity and examine many of its most secret files, drills, plans and contingencies is quite wonderful for human as well as historical reasons. And yet – and here lies the poignancy – we meet at a time of great and, I fear, justified anxiety about the safety of our realm from those of hostile intent. More on that in a moment. Let me first explain the thinking behind the exhibition at the National Archives in Kew which uses, among other things (including a WE177 bomb which greets visitors as they arrive) a scattering of the documents which you had waiting on your seats. The WE177, by the way, was kindly lent by the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. When the National Archives team visited Aldermaston before Christmas 2003 to see what could be borrowed, one of our anxieties was that carting it to Kew might cause anxiety to the people of the London Borough of Richmond. ‘You might call it the Kew Missile Crisis’, came the droll reply from one of our friends at AWRE. Enough of that. Five themes blend in the making of that exhibition and what I would like to talk about this evening: 7 Secrets and mysteries. Intelligence was at the heart of the Cold War. For myself and my students the Joint Intelligence Committee’s assessments of the Soviet Union, its intentions and capabilities, provide the spinal cord of all our research. The nuclear bias. The dilemma of whether to spend our money on active or passive defence was, from the Attlee Government on, always resolved in favour of the former, the nuclear deterrent especially. Civil defence and any kind of serious shelter policy was ever the loser. Vetting, filing and smashing. By which I mean the countering of Soviet intelligence, assessing the degree to which the Communist Party of Great Britain was an ‘enemy within’ and refining Whitehall’s methods for exposing or keeping out the crown servants of George VI and Elizabeth II who were prepared to moonlight for Stalin and his successors. Plus the plans to ‘smash’ (the JIC’s word) the CPGB in the last days of peace and intern the very small proportion of its members who were deemed dangerous by M15. Breakdown. The dreadful job of peering into the abyss of a post-nuclear attack Britain and assessing, as best one could, the point at which society would begin to breakdown with survivors so desperate they would simply refuse to take any notice of those who tried to order them about for the purposes of orderly survival let alone reconstruction even when the penalties at the disposal of the authorities might ultimately involve life or death. Bunkerdom. The plans for a War Cabinet to retreat to a final redoubt in the Cotswolds under Box Hill between Bath and Corsham and for the country to be split into 12 mini-kingdoms presided over by a Cabinet minister as regional commissioner with military government in the most devastated areas. Retaliation. The drills for getting the V-bombers airborne in time. The instructions on what to do if the Prime Minister and the two ministers designated as his alternative decision-takers were wiped out by a bolt-from-the-blue attack by Soviet missiles. The decision would have fallen to a man in uniform, the Chief of RAF Bomber Command, and we have his instructions on the wall in the exhibition. 8 Fig 1. The first rough draft of a 1965 document, summarising, for the benefit of the Queen, the way in which her kingdom might end. Fig 2. The communications links through which nuclear command 9 and control might have been exercised. 10 There is one, extraordinary scrap of paper which we have on show at Kew (and is reproduced here at Figure 1) that pulls all of this together.1. Let me explain its genesis. It is the first rough draft (the finished article is still classified, deemed sensitive to this day – this scrap of paper was left in the file by mistake) of a summary prepared for the Queen in 1965 of the War Book drill which, if it had been implemented, would have meant the end of her kingdom. A new man taking over the retaliation desk in the Cabinet Office realised that in the thirteen years of her reign to that date, the Queen had not been briefed on the Government War Book. Amazing. ‘MACMORRIS’ and ‘FLUELLEN’ (it should be) are the codenames for the early stages of the transition-to-global-war when the communications networks were to be prepared. The Precautionary Stage was the one we were a few hours away from when Mr Khrushchev backed down at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. ‘TURNSTILE’ was the codename of the War Cabinet’s last redoubt beneath Box Hill. ‘VISITATION’ is almost certainly the codename for nuclear retaliation. This, for me, is one of the most significant, let alone the most chilling, of the miles of paper preserved in the National Archives. May I turn now to another document (Figure 2) from the retaliation files which dates from 1961?2 If you didn’t have it in your hand, and I told you about it citing my source as ‘private information,’ you would think I was making it up. After a review stimulated by the Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Mountbatten (who thought the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, should, like the American President, have an officer with him at all times carrying the retaliation codes), a compromise was reached. Mr Macmillan wanted no fuss and no attending officer. The Treasury wanted to spend as little money as possible. So, the last link in the chain, if a nuclear attack on the British Isles was both imminent and unexpected and the PM was out of town, you can see in the top right-hand corner.

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