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Wawne AAOR
[Posted March 29.]
Posted by: Mike Poole
The former AAOR at Wawne, East Yorkshire is to be preserved as a Cold War Museum. The Developers who have bought the land are allowing a substancial part of the bunker, recently the Emergency Planning Headquarters of the Humberside County Council to become a Cold War Museum and some of the original artefacts are to be returned to it.
Scource: Radio Humberside 28th March.
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Raven Rock
[Posted March 29.]
Posted by: Kevin Ronaldson
Extract taken from 'NEWS TRANSCRIPT from the United States Department of Defense'.
Significance: 'Site R' aka 'Raven Rock' bunker mentioned in press briefing.
DoD News Briefing
Victoria Clarke ASD (PA)
Tuesday, March 26, 2002 - 11:00 a.m. EST
(Also participating was Air Force Brig. Gen. John W. Rosa, Jr., deputy director for current operations, Operations Directorate, the Joint Staff.)
Q: Can I ask you a question of the 2002 defense
supplemental? There's been a lot of publicity about continuity of government. Within the supplemental, you're asking for $74 billion for something called "Site R", apparently it's a continuity of government facility. And this is for upgrades for power, cooling and to incorporate principal staff and joint staff into an organized system. Can you talk a little bit of what actually is 'Site R' and how does this fit into the overall continuity of government plans of the Bush administration?
Clarke: Well, it fits into the overall continuity of government plans. It fits into plans... a plan that has been in place for some time, well before September 11th. It has been going on, I think, since the start of the Cold War, probably, to make sure that in times of emergency or crisis, the government, in this case the Pentagon and military, can and will continue to operate. So I don't know the specific details about that piece of it you're talking about, but it is to make sure we do have all the communications that we want to have.
Again, a lot of these things were in place before September 11th. Given the heightened state of awareness and the concerns, people are taking a hard look, do we have everything we want to have in place. So I'm sure that's what it's dedicated to.
Q: Is Site R a physical location, which you're not going to disclose, obviously, but is it a location or more of a plan, just a name for a plan?
Clarke: It is part of an overall plan to make sure that
the military, the Pentagon can be up and operating. And I'll just leave it at that.
Q: (Inaudible) - physical, standing location that you're upgrading?
Clarke: I'll just leave it at that.
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Nuclear bunker plan for old masters
[Posted March 17.]
Posted by: Jason Blackiston
There would be just six hours to save the nation's art treasures. The order was to be given at midday, the troops and museum staff would be deployed and then the lorries would begin arriving. Hours later, in darkness so as not to provoke panic, the Titians and the Turners and the Tintorettos would be on their way to Welsh quarries.
When the ballistic missiles incinerated British cities, they at least would survive - though there may have been no one left to view them.
The plan, codenamed Operation Methodical, was drawn up in 1962 at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. According to recently declassified government documents, an emergency plan to save the nation's art was drafted four days after President Kennedy imposed a 'naval quarantine' on Cuba to force the Soviets to dismantle the nuclear missiles they had placed on the island. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev eventually backed down, but the plans remained in place.
Only a very few senior art directors, Ministers, Whitehall officials and senior soldiers knew of Operation Methodical. One was Sir Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, who confessed to being a Soviet spy soon after the missile crisis.
Last week Sir Oliver Millar, Blunt's deputy at the time, told The Observer that the plan called for 12 pantechnicons with civilian drivers to transport the finest works in the National Gallery, the Tate, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Queen's collection to quarries in Wales and Wiltshire and to remote country houses in the Scottish Highlands. They would have included the National's Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Monet's Waterlilies, Constable's The Hay Wain and the fourteenth century Wilton Diptych. From the Tate would have come classic works by Turner and Gainsborough. Italian and Dutch Renaissance masterpieces were to have been selected from the Queen's Collection.
'The aim was to save works of supreme importance,' Millar said. But, he added, 'there were questions of space that were never resolved'.
The lorries, with armed guards, would have headed for Manod quarry in north Wales and Westwood quarry in Corsham. If that proved impractical, they were to be left at country houses in Gloucestershire and Henley-on-Thames.
However, thousands of paintings and sculptures would have been abandoned. One official was blunt: 'A great many treasures of high value would have to be left behind to take their chance, which would obviously be slim.' Even the fate of works included in Operation Methodical was uncertain.
'Whether [the plan] will have the faintest chance of succeeding... is another question,' one civil servant noted on an internal memo. Others warned of the need to keep pictures on display 'for national morale reasons'. Officials were concerned that the removal of the nation's best-loved artworks would trigger an exodus from London and other cities. To avoid sparking panic Operation Methodical was to be put into action only when Ministers were actively considering readying the country for nuclear war.
Source: The Observer
Original Article:
http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,660982,00.html
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Latest on Monkton Farliegh
[Posted March 14.]
Most of Farleigh Down Sidings (The interchange station for Monkton Farleigh) has been razed to the ground, all except the tin hut and the pill box, which now stand very prominent amidst a sea of mud.
Posted By
Nick McCamley
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ROC Online Database - REDUCED SERVICE
[Posted March 6.]
Due to limitations of our current server (kindly provided for free) and the shear quantity of hits the Subbrit site gets we have had to take down the ROC databases and move them to another server.
Until we resolve the technical issues involved here this service will remain working but at a reduced service. We hope to resume this important area of the Subbrit site soon. Sorry.
Regards
Mark
(Subbrit Webmaster)
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New Book
[Posted March 3.]
News for all you book lovers
Posted by...
Toby Bowers followed by additional info by Terry White
Source...
Review section of Sunday Telegraph page 12
THE SECRET STATE:WHITEHALL AND THE COLD WAR
by Peter Hennessy
Just read a review of a new book out this week by a chap called Peter Hennessy entitled "The secret state: Whitehall and the cold war".
It has all the usual stuff you would expect from a book of that title and it appears, a little more! Part of the book is apparently devoted to a bunker codenamed "turnstile" - none other than the fascinating Corsham complex.
The author has reportedly been allowed "unparrelled" access and as you can expect a lot of photos pad the book out as well as a alleged "official" list of who would have gained access should the need have arisen.
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Dollis Hill GPO Research Station
[Posted March 3.]
Exhibition and Visit
Posted by...
Nick Catford
Grange Museum of Community History will be mounting an exhibition from 25th April to 1st June entitled 'Dollis Hill GPO Research Station' and, quote "...promises
to explore the site over the past 60 years, with interviews and photographs from former employees." Entry will be free. One part of this complex is the 'Paddock' bunker. The WW2 stanby cabinet war room.
The Grange Museum is in the middle of a roundabout in Neasden Lane close to Neasden tube station.
There will also be two open public days at Paddock Tuesday 16th April and Thursday 25th April. It is necessary to book in advance as there are limited spaces available. Bookings can be made through Nick Catford
Contact.
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/contributors.html
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Good program to watch
[Posted March 3.]
For all you telly addicts.
Posted by...
Caroline Ford
A series on Britain's military heritage is on BBC Four (Digital TV Channel) next week - Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 7pm.
More Info.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour
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Fancy buying a rotor bunker?
[Posted March 2.]
Skendleby for sale again.
Posted by...
Nick catford
The former Rotor/RGHQ site at Skendleby in Lincolnshire has been put on the market for the second time in 18 months. At the end of 2000 it was bought by a London businessman who wanted to lease it out as a 'Telehotel'. I spoke to him a few months ago and he told me that his plans had fallen through and he was looking for a new use for it. He was obviously unable to find another use as it is now up for sale again. I believe he paid about £220,000 for it. If there is enough interest I will try and arrange another visit.
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Titos Bunker now art gallery
[Posted March 1.]
Tito's nuclear bunker becomes art gallery
Posted by...
Jason Blackiston
The nuclear bunker designed to shelter Yugoslavia's former dictator Marshall Tito has become an art gallery.
A warren of tunnels and bomb-proof rooms 250 metres below a Croatian park was created in 1949 after Tito's rift with Stalin.
National park authorities have now turned it into exhibition hall and planning more events in the future with investment of £500,000.
It remained a secret to all but a few of the national elite and was only discovered in 1991 after Croatia's split from Yugoslavia.
American national park experts provided help on transforming the bunker, which lies under the peak of Mount Velebit at Paklenica, for use without disturbing nature.
Tito, who died in 1980, built the system at a cost of millions.
It is one of many Cold War bunkers across Europe being transformed into peacetime sanctuaries.
The one that served Tito's opposite number in East Germany, Erich Honecker, has new residents moving in this week - a colony of bats.
Story filed: 12:23 Thursday 15th November 2001
Original article...
Annanova
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Observer Corps Bunker
[Posted March 1.]
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Visit to Holbeach Royal Observer Corps underground observation post
Report by David Rodger. January 2000
Posted by Jason Blackiston.
The heritage trust of Linconshire has been approached by a farmer from Clenchwarton, South Holland, who owns a Royal Observer Corps underground observation post near Holbeach. He is anxious to find an organisation to look after it properly. There were 46 of these posts in Lincolnshire, but many have now been destroyed since the end of the Cold War.
The post at Holbeach is one of the few remaining which is still dry (these installations often flood), and in excellent condition with much of its original equipment present. If the Trust were to acquire this unusual subterranean building, we would endeavour to reunite the missing pieces of equipment and instruments, and open it periodically to the public.
One problem concerning the opening of the bunker is the question of access. The installation is set on a corner of a country road, with no readily available car parking space, although there is a pub nearby that might be persuaded to let a few (potentially thirsty) visitors use its forecourt.
By its very nature, this nuclear monitoring post is somewhat camouflaged, being painted green and living as it does in a grassy patch of land. This makes finding the thing a bit of a trial as I found out recently when I went over there. Luckily, I managed to spot the sign on the entrance gate, informing that,"Minist.Proh.bit.." ...a bit of a clue there thought I.
Once over the gate, the visitor is confronted by what looks like an oversized fridge, knocked over and painted green. This is the access hatch. Beyond that is a cross between a chimney and a bird box, which I've been reliably informed is an air vent. After grappling with the padlock and opening the hatch, entrance is via a steel ladder fixed to the side of a 15 foot shaft.
At the bottom of the shaft there are two doors: one giving entry to a chemical closet, the otherleading to a monitoring room, which would have been staffed by three observers.
These are the only rooms. There isn't a lot of space in there, so the crew had to be able to get on with each other.
The monitoring room is pretty sparse at the moment, but I'm told that some equipment has been taken away for storage. On the wall, you can just see a circular disc, that would have housed the 'Bomb Power Indicator', while the blue box on the table is the 'Fixed Survey Meter'.
It's right next to two boxes of emergency rations left after the post was abandoned in 1991.
Although a recent piece of 'Heritage', this monument to Cold War vigilance is as worth preserving as a WWII pill box or Saxon shore fort site. It stands as testimony to the perceived threat of war that shrouded the whole world for nearly fifty years.
This threat shaped the historical record, and buildings such as the Royal Observer Corps bunkers are physical evidence of this. Our only problem is, how on earth can we get people safely into the room to look at it?
David Rodger
Original article... The Heritage Trust of Linconshire
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London 1959 target
[Posted March 1.]
London was target of four nuclear rockets in 1959
Source Allan Hall in Berlin
Posted by Jason Blackiston
BRITAIN was targeted with four nuclear rockets based in East Germany as early as 1959, three years before the Cuban missile crisis that was understood to be the first Soviet attempt to position atomic weapons outside the USSR.
A documentary broadcast in Germany last night disclosed the secrets of two bunker complexes at Fürstenberg and Vogelsang, 50 miles from Berlin and then deep inside the German Democratic Republic (GDR). There, for four months, R5M rockets with nuclear warheads were pointed westwards. Four were aimed at London and another eight were intended for Paris, the Ruhr, the West German capital, Bonn, and Brussels.
Researchers discovered in former GDR archives that, on the word from Moscow, the East German military would have had the rockets ready for launch within five hours.
The R5M, the first Soviet missile with a nuclear delivery capacity, was designed to travel up to 745 miles. Two divisions of the 72nd Brigade were detached for a test German deployment under the Second Guard Tank Army at Fürstenberg. The PRO 7 TV channel revealed in The Atom Project how, under Order 589-365, signed by Nikita Khrushchev, then the Soviet Union leader, the command was given to position the doomsday weapons.
Details of the secret movement of the missiles were found in former Stasi secret police files. Khrushchev was informed by the military in May 1959: “Units ready for action.”
It ended suddenly after a few months. Khrushchev recalled the 72nd Brigade, which was gone by early September. Today the bunkers are the home of wild animals.
Original article from..
The Times Online
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Shadow Government Is at Work in Secret (USA)
[Posted March 1.]
Dr James Fox writes:
Dear RSG,
The latest news on the Washington Post web site shows that the USA still has and uses emergency government plans and bunkers where the UK scrapped all theirs in 1991 (a little premature perhaps?)
See: Washington Post
The Bunker Preservation Trust
Museum: 01206 392271
Office: 01206 395680
Fax: 01206 393847
email: info@essexsecretbunker.com
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‘Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers' -released 15th March!
[Posted March 1.]
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15/2/02
Just a note for all those who are asking: I’ve spoken to the publisher today, and they say that ‘Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers' (
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