file 13

Civil or home defence goes beyond responding to the immediate effects of an attack. It includes preparing all aspects of the nation state for war and ensuring that it can continue to function during and after it. Most government departments, local authorities and many other bodies such as the BBC were involved in these activities throughout the Cold War.

At the policy making level activities were co-ordinated and policy made by Cabinet Committees[1]. The principal one was the Home Defence Committee that was to “co-ordinate planning for the Machinery of Government in War”. At the height of the Cold War, it had sub-committees on public information in war, the machinery of government in war, war book and war legislation. Concerned with the more day-to-day aspects of civil defence was the Ministerial Committee on Civil Defence that met every few months under the chairmanship of the Home Secretary. It had sub-committees on civil defence planning, key points, port emergency planning, oil supplies and NATO civil preparations.

The Ministerial Committee was shadowed by an Official Committee on Civil Defence that acted on instructions from the Ministerial Committee and prepared reports, etc for it. It was composed of civil servants from departments such as the Treasury, Home Office, MAFF, the Scottish Office, the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Chiefs of Staff

In addition, the military Chiefs of Staff had various committees responsible for their role in home defence. There were also various NATO committees to co-ordinate national plans both before and during a war.

The key to home defence during the Cold War was the War Book. This has been maintained since 1911 and contains detailed instructions for co-ordinating the mobilisation of the civilian and service ministries on the outbreak of war. The War Book was a heavily classified publication and only available to a few senior people. Most ministries only had one copy and in 1964 only 96 copies existed. Even then there were even more heavily restricted parts relating to release procedures for nuclear weapons. The War Book, even the versions from 50 years ago are still not available to the public but the scope of its contents can be seen from the chapter headings of the 1966 edition -

The Government War Book gave a series of cryptic instructions as to what was to be done and by whom at various stages of a crisis, for example “warn telephone managers to activate the EMSS”, “Review police war instructions” and “Secretary of the Cabinet arranges for the Cabinet to consider if the selection of staff at the alternative government war headquarters should be finalised and staff informed”.

In addition, each government department and fighting service had its own local War Book but by the late 1950s some departments had not updated their War Books since the turn of the decade and some may have been using one from the last war. They were however updated several times during the Cold War and changed to meet differing circumstances and responses. During the 1960s War Book exercises were held in conjunction with the Fallex series of exercises. For example, “Exercise Felsted” was the central government War Book exercise, which preceded Fallex 62, and “Exercise Invaluable” preceded Fallex 68[2]. These exercises simulated cabinet meetings and decision-making processes relating to mobilising the country during the crisis, together with the use of various communications systems. They were held every two years and appear to have been far from popular with the civil servants who planned and took part in them. A cryptic hand written note in the margin of one briefing document for Exercise Invaluable refers to it as a “bi-annual horror”. Politicians and Ministers seem to have taken no part in these exercises. A lesson which appears to have been learned each time was that the communications and decision making procedures involving NATO, various ministries and the Cabinet Office Control Point (then codenamed “Cockpit[3]”) were too slow and cumbersome for the increasingly rapid pace with which crises were developing. Exercise Invaluable seems to have virtually collapsed due to problems of communications both within Whitehall and between the Whitehall ministries and NATO centres. The Government War Book was also frequently found to be inflexible and inadequate.

In the 1970s NATO started a series of biannual “Wintex/Cimex” (winter exercise/civil-military exercise). The first, Wintex71(Exercise Good Heart) was paralleled by a small exercise called Exercise New Deal to test military home defence transition to war plans. New Deal was notable for having minimal civil involvement following the introduction of “care and maintenance”. For example, the new Armed Forces Headquarters were established but the Sub Regional Controls were not.

The Government War Book and Manual of Emergency Measures was rewritten between 1982 and 1984. It came into use in 1985 when it was said to "...present the decisions which need to be made by the Cabinet at time of heightened tension to place the nation on a war footing and respond to Nato requirements. It presents decisions as a series of Emergency Measures which are set out in the form of omnibus measures which enable the Cabinet to instruct Departments to take all measures to a specified stage and in the form of 50 measures set out under broad headings....Within each Emergency Measure are up to 7 chronological steps broadly described as -

The Home Office

At the central government level planning for the “machinery of government in war” is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. Below this level of the control chain the lead department for civil defence was the Home Office. In the Cold War its main areas of responsibility were overseeing the preparation of plans by local authorities, monitoring the Civil Defence Grant paid by central government to local authorities, the regional level controls, the regional and local scientific advisers, the College at Easingwold and scientific research in relation to civil defence

Following the 1948 Act the Home Office’s Civil Defence Department was enlarged and organised into several divisions to oversee the Civil Defence Corps, the role of the local authorities, the regional organisation and so on. In the mid-1950s the regional organisation, which had existed since the last war, was expanded and Regional Directors were appointed. The Regional Offices monitored the civil defence activities in their region but more importantly, they were responsible for the regional level controls such as the RSGs and SRCs including organising exercises. In 1968, the regional organisation was scrapped leaving the Home Office without any direct local contact with the local authorities and no one to oversee the SRHQs, etc. This was a serious weakness in the ability of the Home Office to perform its role effectively.

In 1970 the rump of the civil defence activities previously performed by the large Home Office Civil Defence Department were taken over by the F6 Division supported by the Supply and Transport branch. Both were part of the Police Department no doubt because the only real remaining part of the civil defence system, the siren network, was the day-to-day responsibility of the police. In 1984, F6 was transferred into the newly formed Fire and Emergency Planning Department and in 1989 to reflect the changing nature of civil defence this was renamed The Emergency Planning Division[4]. In Scotland, civil defence was overseen by the Scottish Home and Health Department.

Many other government departments had civil defence responsibilities throughout the Cold War. As an illustration, the roles the responsibilities of individual ministries in planning and operational aspects of civil defence in the 1950s were as follows –

Ministry of Public Building - control of building and civil engineering & Works operations and materials.

The department with the most vital role was the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and this will be covered in depth in the next File. The other main players were the departments dealing with health, energy and transport.

One of the key roles for civil defence was the treatment of the casualties and preparations were made throughout the cold war to deal with them. These plans show graphically the changes between the massive efforts which, albeit often only in theory, would be directed towards civil defence after a nuclear attack in the 1950s and early 1960s and the much more limited aspirations of the plans of the 1970s and 1980s.

In the 1950s, the plans were based on atomic attack but by the mid-1950s the horror of the hydrogen bomb dominated planning. An attack would result in millions of casualties in a matter of hours. Plans envisaged that hospitals (or rather their staffs and as much of their equipment and supplies as possible) would be evacuated from the cities that were expected to be attacked. They would be re-established in the “hospital evacuation zone” some 15 miles from the target city centre as “acute hospitals” which nationally would provide up to 450000 beds. After the attack, “auxiliary hospitals” would be opened as necessary in shops, village halls and the like. They would provide up to 450000 additional beds but would be able to offer little medical care and their role would be to hold patients pending transfer to an acute hospital. All the hospitals would be assisted by volunteers, members of the voluntary aid societies such as the British Red Cross Society and the St John Ambulance together with the National Hospital Service Reserve.

As with all other 1950s plans the idea involved a rather rigid structure with many levels of organisation and would require huge numbers of people. Civil defence workers would initially take casualties to Ambulance Loading Points, which would be manned by the voluntary aid societies and first aid parties from the Corps. They would then be taken on to a Forward Medical Aid Unit staffed by general practitioners and nurses who would treat the lightly injured and give emergency treatment as necessary to those requiring transfer to a hospital. Movement of the casualties would be by organised ambulance units manned by the Corps using requisitioned vehicles.

These 1950s plans depended on many layers of quite complex organisation backed up by suitably trained and organised staff and ultimately needing vast amounts of drugs, dressings and so on. In reality, could such a structure have been put together in the chaos following a nuclear attack? At least the existence of the Corps and the National Hospital Service Reserve gave a foundation on which such a structure could possibly be built but these people were not available after 1968. However, the later plans tended to assume that the cities would not be targeted and the advent of more accurate delivery systems meant that smaller bombs would be used. This suggested that that the number of casualties would be lower, although a 1977 Circular[5] still said “The number of casualties might be quite beyond the resources of existing health services” which is surely an understatement given that today’s health services are stretched to the limit when confronted with a few dozen casualties from a major train or air crash.

The Circular envisaged that as many patients as possible would be discharged from hospitals on the crisis period which would free up to 60% of available beds. It did not however say what would happen to those discharged patients who for whatever reason needed help or medical care. These discharges would allow equipment, and in particular trained staff, who were said to be the health service’s most valuable resource to be dispersed around the region. The health services would continue to be administered after attack by the peacetime Regional and District Health Authorities.

Casualties would now be treated initially at a first aid post manned by the voluntary aid societies before being transferred to a Casualty Clearing Centre staffed by general practitioners and nurses. These centres would sort and treat casualties before sending some onto hospital and returning others to the community to be cared for. The only hospital facilities would be those in the peacetime hospitals. The Circular said, “The number of casualties may be expected greatly to exceed surviving hospital resources and Directors [of Health] would have to impose strict admission policies”. In particular, radiation casualties would not be admitted because there would be no effective treatment for them and furthermore hospitals “…should initially accept only those casualties who after limited surgical procedures would be likely to be alive after 7 days with a fair chance of eventual recovery”. There was no indication about the fate of those who did not appear to have such a fair chance. The regional training course Exercise Regard was blunter in its expectation as were most civil defence plans that were not for public consumption. Part of the post-attack briefing for delegates said “the devastation and mass casualty situation in Nottingham is horrific” and that there was “an appalling and continuing burial problem”. Medical staff would quickly become overwhelmed by the task but they would also rapidly run out of supplies and the briefings for Exercise Hard Rock envisaged that there would not even be enough supplies of dressings and other basic first aid supplies to set up the planned first aid posts. Some experiments were made in the mid-1980s to pre-stock supplies but in reality, little would have been available[6].

In 1988, a further health service circular was issued which originally should have been produced as part of the EPGLA in 1985. It repeated the same basic message as its predecessor but toned down slightly the casualty prediction. The wartime casualty treatment structure was however simplified. As before, as many patients as possible would be discharged and medical staff and supplies dispersed but now the initial treatment would be provided at an Emergency Medical Centre staffed by general practitioners and nurses who would carry out basic first aid and simple surgery. There were however still hints that the system would not be able to cope and that there would be a need to switch from “highly sophisticated methods…to more basic approaches to care” and “the treatment of burns and blast injuries might have to be selective”. There was no guide as to who would do the selecting and on what basis.

Modern society is totally dependent on power supplies – coal, oil, gas and in particular electricity. We experience the occasional power cuts which are amusing for a few hours but soon become a problem when there is no lighting, heating, entertainment, hot water or cooking. And this is just the impact on the average home without considering the wider effects on the economy and society as a whole. All the war plans assumed that in the vast majority of the country would have no power at all for weeks after a nuclear attack and possibly for much longer.

In the 1950s production of coal, gas and electricity was much more localised than today. It was also the responsibility of nationalised industries and therefore came under direct government control. Some of the industries developed limited war plans including the provision of emergency headquarters and stocking of spares and parts.

Even after an H-bomb attack it was thought that enough electricity generating capacity would remain for the expected much reduced national needs. In 1976, a Circular[7] said, perhaps surprisingly, that electricity and gas were not essential to survival and pointed out that whilst all the power producers were interdependent with for example coalmines needing electricity and gas producers needing coal much of the normal peacetime demand would cease after attack. Some production facilities might be directly affected by the attack but the electro-magnetic pulse would do more damage particularly to the grid distribution system. After the attack there would be little coal or gas available although some power stations might be restarted. However, this may have been more problematic than the circular implies because as well as fuel power stations require supplies of various chemicals and other consumables and most require large amounts of air and water. If the plants were run in conditions of even low level fall out the volume of air and water used would concentrate the fall out inside the plants.

The diagram below shows the expected impact of a nuclear attack on both the demand for and supply of electricity.

Oil, and in particular supplies of petrol and diesel fuel have always been considered important for national survival. At the national level, the main oil companies assisted the Department of Energy on the National Oil Board and in a war the companies would pool their resources, co-ordinated by the UK Oil Mobilisation Control, and aim to give priority to defence and other essential services. At regional level Regional Oil Committees would be set up mainly with staff from the oil companies with representatives at the regional and county controls. Throughout most of the Cold War the bulk of petrol and oil products were imported but there was a lot of emergency storage capacity left over from the war. In the 1950s an underground storage facility was built in Cheshire in converted salt mines to hold bulk supplies of oil products for both government agencies and private companies. Additional pipeline facilities were also constructed together with other storage facilities which were leased to commercial concerns and some emergency anchorages. The importance of these facilities and the fact that because they were leased to commercial companies they were self-financing meant that they were largely untouched by the various cost cutting measures affecting other areas of home defence.

In the crisis period production would be maximised and a 1984 report said that there was usually 76 days supply of oil products in the country although the problem, post-attack might be getting at it and it suggested that bulk stocks should be dispersed to the tanks of users where ever possible. If an attack seemed imminent, certain local petrol stations would be “frozen” by the police for use later by the simple expedient of taking the keys from the owners and removing the fuses from all electricity circuits for the pumps although some more realistic planners in the oil industry have dismissed this idea. From the mid-1970s, plans to introduce a general scheme of petrol rationing in wartime were abandoned.

EPGLA covered the power industries in the transition to war/conventional war phases pointing out that demand would rise and restrictions might have to be introduced. The panic buying and general shortages, which were seen during the restrictions which followed the fuel protests in 2000 showed that this would be an understatement. The Guidelines emphasised that gas supplies would be vulnerable. If production facilities were lost in the transition to war then the supply would cease but the national pipeline distribution system was itself vulnerable to interruptions and might have to be shut down at an early stage. Despite this, many Emergency Planning Officers made plans on the basis that gas supplies would not be interrupted and many of those plans listed potential Community Support Centres and feeding centres where cooking would be done with gas. It consequently came as a significant shock to the players in Exercise Vireg when gas supplies were cut off quite early in the crisis. Post-exercise discussions with the Department of Energy showed that the, now privatised, power industries were responsible for preparing their own emergency plans independently of the Department and there were no national or regional plans. Whether or not gas would be cut off and when would depend on the circumstances but planners were advised to assume that there would be no domestic gas supplies in the transition to war period.

Transport was another area where grandiose plans were made in the 1950s and then whittled down over the next 30 years. In the 1950s and 1960s plans Regional Transport Controllers would be responsible to the Regional Commissioner for all buses, coaches and goods vehicles in the region. All lorries and vans except those used by the emergency services would be requisitioned into Goods Vehicle Units of 500 – 1000 vehicles. Buses and coaches would be similarly grouped into Bus Fleets. Who would drive these vehicles was not mentioned but presumably it was expected that the peacetime drivers would either volunteer or would be directed under the emergency powers. Any significant road movements would be organised by the Convoy Co-ordinating Officer at county level under the direction of the RSG. Certain major roads would be designated as Essential Service Routes to be kept clear in the crisis period and beyond for civil defence and other official traffic. This idea dates from the 1950s. Although the scheme was modified in 1973 to take motorways into account it was quietly dropped in the early 1980s no doubt in recognition of the simple fact that there would be no spare police or military forces to keep the routes clear of civilians and also that in the absence of organised civil defence there would be few official vehicles about.

The railways would have been important during wartime particularly up to the mid-1960s when the network was much bigger than today. Most of the transport for mobilisation and moving bulk stores and people would have been by rail. The evacuation schemes were particularly dependent on railways. In the early 1950s, the British Railways planned to build 37 purpose built hardened controls with walls five feet thick as part of their “due functioning” preparations.. In practice, money was short and only one was actually completed. By the early 1960s, the idea had been abandoned in favour of using the peacetime control system with railway liaison officers at regional and county controls supplemented by Mobile Emergency Controls to take over if the peacetime Divisional controls could not function. Two such emergency controls each consisting of 4 coaches were proposed for each British Railways region. Detailed planning started in 1961 but in the tradition of civil defence work they were not operational until 1967. They were all scrapped by 1980 having largely been forgotten for many years. One perhaps apocryphal story tells of one such set of coaches marooned inside its sealed shed for many years after the track connecting it to the main line had been taken up[8]. As with many plans for many organisations the railways also ran into problems with emergency communications, notably how they would be paid for.

In 1977, a circular on Inland Transport in War[9] suggested that in a crisis the local Traffic Commissioners, who in peacetime look after such things as the licensing of bus and goods vehicle operators would co-ordinate transport resources if necessary but generally, it was expected that the normal peacetime mechanisms would cope. After attack, Department of Transport staff at region and county controls would organise transport again using peacetime organisations supplemented if necessary by requisitioning.

EPGLA continued the same basic line but recognised the need for more active co-ordination and planning in the transition to war period and envisaged a Surface Transport and Shipping Co-ordinating Centre being set up. This would be established in the basement of the Marsham Street complex, better known as The Rotunda and site in the 1950s the old Central Government War Room where it would share accommodation with the National Shipping Agency and the Department of Transport Control Point. It would be staffed by officers from the Department of Transport to monitor all transport needs and usage and if necessary allocate priorities. At the regional level, the Traffic Commissioners would again be called on although they would be called Regional Transport Commissioners and become members of the Regional Emergency Committee if it were set up. After attack, all central control of transport would cease and the Regional Transport Commissioner would become part of the Regional Commissioner’s team to assess, co-ordinate and control resources. At county level County Transport Controllers would be appointed from council staff but they would be responsible to the Regional Transport Commissioner rather than the County Controller.

An interesting device often mentioned in plans, even those from the Department of Transport is the “dormant contract”. The idea was that in peacetime a local transport company would be approached to sign what amounted to little more than a gentleman’s agreement that they would supply an agreed number of vehicles (and possibly, but at least as important, drivers) in a crisis. However such was the sense of muddle in civil defence planning that whilst one part of the Department was advocating the use of such dormant contracts another was saying that in reality they did not exist and that if necessary requisitioning could be used if normal contractual arrangements proved inadequate.

The early 1950s “due functioning” plans expected the major ports to be damaged if not destroyed. But ships would still reach the country from overseas during the lengthy war so plans were made to use the smaller ports and to establish emergency anchorages at some 20 sites for 140 ships. Equipment such as moorings, cranes and grain elevators were purchased and often then rented to the port authorities. This equipment appears to have been retained into the 1980s and extensive plans were again made in those years to set up a wartime port and shipping organisation for a “due functioning” role during the expected conventional war. In a crisis the navy would have been given emergency powers to requisition British shipping. This would be achieved by the activation of the Naval Control and Shipping Organisation working in conjunction with the civilian Central Port and Shipping HQ and members of the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service

[1] This section is based on the 1950s and 1960s. Planning at this level is usually done in secret and information is not available about the practices after 1970 although it is probable that something at least very similar was used. Certainly, the Home Defence Committee continued into the 1980s when it was supported by the Civil Contingencies Committee.

[2] In the late 1960s and 1970s the Nato-wide Fallex exercises were replaced by the Hilex (“high level exercise”) series exercising Nato political consultation and decision making.

[3] The Cabinet Office building occupies the site of the cock-fighting pit of the Whitehall Palace.

[4] In 2001, the emergency planning functions of the Home Office were transferred to the Cabinet Office.

[5] ES1/1977

[6] In 1961, the Ministry of Health suddenly asked the Treasury for money to convert 44 tons of opium into 125 million doses of morphine. This stock had been bought in 1949 and had apparently been forgotten. Unfortunately, there were no facilities to make the morphine and the stocks were disposed of although this was not completed until 1969.

[7] ES5/1976

[8] There are many urban myths surrounding home defence. One of the most persistent is the supposed existence of a strategic reserve of steam engines secreted away in some unknown tunnel. Unfortunately, like a supposed tunnel from London to the Corsham complex or the 32 storey deep bunker under Whitehall it has no basis in fact.

[9] ES2/1977

File 13 The Ministries Prepare for War
Departmental plans - the War Book - health - transport - energy
struggleforsurvival AT hotmail.com

Central Government Planning

The Home Office