List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Wiltshire

Transcription

In August, 1945, for the first time in human history, civilisation stood vulnerable to total annihilation. In an instant, the accepted conventions of warfare were brushed aside. The modern battlefield would now be 50,000 feet above us, and death would travel these new frontiers on the wings of a jet bomber. As Britain prepared for peace, the country was thrown into a different kind of conflict - one that forced the nation to learn a new language of war. As soon as we'd be called upon to be used, it was nuclear war. The Third World War - nuclear. One bomb was approximately equivalent to all the bombs dropped by the Allies on Germany in World War II. Our mission was a one-way ride, and you were going to blow up the world. And no-one knew about it. To maintain its position in the new world order, and meet the exacting standards of this new technological warfare, Britain once again turned to its aviation industry, to the next generation of war machines. There was no other country in the world, who could produce an aircraft like the V-bombers. They were, for the day, like spaceships almost. As the platform for delivering nuclear Armageddon, the role of the jet bomber was set to dominate the political landscape for the next two decades. Aviation was the delivery system for the nuclear deterrent. I remember thinking that, "Gosh, you've got to be a brave man to do that, because if you're doing it for real, you've got nowhere to come back to. This is the story of how Britain embraced, adapted and improved its jet technology to face up to the terrifying realities of the new era, and to define how the Cold War was fought. NEWSREEL: Cut off from the other western zones of Germany by the Russian blockade... In June, 1948, Berlin became the first flash point of the Cold War. In a blatantly aggressive act to control the entire city, Stalin blocked rail, road and canal access to the West. There was only one way open to the beleaguered capital - by air - and at Western Zone airfields, supplies were loaded aboard transports, which had been rushed to the scene. In a single year, 200,000 flights delivered nearly 5,000 tonnes of supplies into West Berlin. A point had been proved - the aeroplane was king. And while there was nothing to match the vast numbers of Soviet troops on the ground, superiority in the skies belonged to the West. By the end of the war, Britain led the world in aviation technology, but the old certainties of the empire were gone, and by the late '40s, the country was forced to align itself with America and the bomb, in the new ideological conflict between East and West. And, of course, we were conscious at the time, that the Soviet army - the romping, stomping Red Army, as they'd call it, was five times bigger than the NATO forces. They had millions of troops under arms, well-trained, efficient... They had some of the best tanks in the world, and lots of them. They had their tails up because they'd conquered the Germans. As tension between the superpowers intensified, a US nuclear strike force became a permanent fixture on British soil. This force is a combat-ready offence force. It is a deterrent force, dedicated to the prevention of war - any war, large or small. This offence force is complemented by the joint allied early warning air defence system. Britain was, for the Americans, an unsinkable aircraft carrier moored off the northwest coast of Europe. It's a great deal easier to fly from Lincolnshire to Leningrad that it is America to Leningrad. You know, range was the thing. Shorter range, bigger payload. All those things. As America's foremost ally in Europe, Britain would be squarely in the Soviets' cross hairs, if World War III started. Of course, Europe was the primary target, because United States surrounded Soviet Union with their air bases. And they easily can reach most of the political and industrial centres. In 1949, confounding all expectation, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. BOMB EXPLODES HOWLING WIND This was quite shocking because the expectation was that the Soviet Union was not capable of developing hi-tech weapons at this rate. The stage was now set for the next world war. A climate of suspicion, fear and mutual menace had begun to develop between the superpowers, and Britain as the non-nuclear piggy-in-the-middle, had nothing with which to retaliate. After the war, there was a feeling that... that was the end of war. And it was suddenly realised, that we have to prepare ourselves for this Russian threat. In 1951, Churchill spelled out the country's vulnerability in the House of Commons. "We must not forget," he said... "that by creating the American atomic base in East Anglia, "we have made ourselves the target, "and perhaps the bull's-eye, of a Soviet attack." "On the 28th March last year, "I said in Parliament, if for instance the United States "had a stockpile of 1,000 atomic bombs, "and Russia had 50, "and we got those 50 fearful experiences, "far beyond anything we have ever endured, "it would be our lot." BOMB EXPLODES Our only option was the nuclear option. That was the quickest and easiest way to give a credible opposition and deterrence. Churchill argued the country must continue to develop its own independent nuclear deterrent, regardless of the cost. This was a generation of politicians, you must remember, who had seen what appeasement did in the '30s. They were dammed if they were going to appease the Soviets. The prospect of Britain developing an atomic bomb, had received a blow in 1946 when the American McMahon Act unanimously refused to share any atomic secrets with its wartime allies. That stupid McMahon act, prevented us acting fully with them, and, in a way, at the time - they were apt to think they were the big boys and we were the small boys - we'd just got to show them that they didn't know everything. To have influence in the new world order, Britain would need its own atomic bomb, and without the help of the Americans the country would have to go it alone. If you want to be involved in the deterrent, you have to be able to do your own deterring. And that's a powerful bargaining tool. If you can start World War III, you have to be listened to. As work got under way building the bomb, the Ministry of Supply started to draw up requirements for a new jet bomber. A plane that could fly higher, faster, and further than any bomber of the past. In January, 1947, the Ministry of Supply issued this specification tender number B-35-46. It was an order for an urgently needed jet bomber - one that would set challenging new hurdles for Britain's aviation companies. They were asking for a bomber that could fly at least 50,000 feet - that is out of range of any Soviet missiles. It also had to have a long-range cruising speed of 580mph. Finally, it had to be capable of carrying a five-tonne atomic bomb. BOMB EXPLODES It was an extraordinary sense that you could do what you set your mind to. It was an extraordinary sense, too, that the resources would be available to carry through extraordinarily ambitious projects of aeronautical design. The first successful bid came from AVRO, based in Manchester. This was a company with pedigree, responsible for bombers like the Lancaster and Lincoln. AVRO's bid was radical, to say the least. The young designers of the Special Projects department, known as the AVRO babes, had borrowed the idea from a glider they'd discovered on a scouting mission to Germany in 1945. This is the incredible first sketch drawn by an young designer called Bob Lindley. Initially it was met with derision, but what would emerge from this was a truly astonishing aircraft, the fantasy of every schoolboy in Britain. Tony Blackman was a Vulcan test pilot. It must've looked incredible when the first designs were drawn up and when it first emerged from the hangar. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Something completely different. But it was right on the edge of technology at that time. They really did a superb job. No-one's done this delta wing like this, have they? Certainly not on this scale. Well, at that time, no. we knew very little in the UK about wing design, at all - or delta wing design - and we had to get help. The Germans had done a lot more work on it. When they flew the aircraft, they discovered that it buffeted at high speed. If you look up here, the outer leading edge on the Mach 1 had to be drooped to get rid of the buffet, but it took several years to actually find the solution. So, presumably, there were a number of advantages to having the delta wing. Oh, yeah. Apart from the strength - it's very strong - of course, you can accommodate the engine, which is very important. And as you can see, the engines don't show at all. They're completely buried in the wing. But a very tiny cockpit. Ah! The cockpit was minute, and the view out of it's appalling! I went up there quite recently, and I looked and thought, "How on earth did I ever manage to fly that?!" The second company to win a contract was Handley Page, arch rivals of AVRO. The company had built the World War II Halifax bomber, and were working on crescent-shaped wings, designed for high-altitude cruising. The design was the brainchild of the chief aerodynamicist - a German. The plane's development, however, was dogged with accidents and delays. The Government decided another less advanced aircraft was required as backup. The third company to be awarded a contract was Vickers Armstrong. The banker as far as the Ministry of Supply were concerned. Vickers promised a new jet bomber that met all the criteria, but didn't push the technological envelope quite so far. More importantly, they also claimed that they would come in under budget and on time. You might think it's odd that you should build three bombers. Why not just build one? The reason is that experience from the Second World War, showed you couldn't tell which kind of aeroplane would do best. So they built three in the expectation that some will be better than others. True to their word, on 18th May, 1951, the Vickers Valiant was the first of the new jet bombers to lift off the runway. Two years later, it went into full production. I couldn't believe it, because I'd been flying piston-engined aircraft, exclusively, up till then. The Valiant just took off and went up like a homesick angel. I was watching the altimeter and it was going round and round and round and round really fast - trying to catch up with the aircraft. Determined not to be overshadowed by the Valiant, AVRO pulled out the stops to get the Vulcan airborne. In August 1952, here at Woodford, the Vulcan was finally rolled out from its hangar. Approaching the aircraft was an urbane figure in a pinstriped suit. This was Roly Falk, the test pilot, who had flown a captured German aircraft at Farnborough during the war. Falk oozed self-confidence and calm imperturbability. but no-one had ever flown a plane like this before, and as he stepped into the cockpit, I can't help thinking he must have had just a few nerves. Tony Blackman was Roly Falk's friend and protege. Couldn't have been a better guy to develop the aircraft. He was absolutely perfect. Not only was he a wonderful demonstration pilot, but he was a great salesman. Politicians and the air staff had to be persuaded that we were going to make a success of the aircraft, and Roly had to chat all these people up, have lunch with all the important people, and he'd rush out in his grey pinstriped suit and fly the aircraft immaculately. Within weeks of its first test flight, the Vulcan was unveiled at the Farnborough air show. NEWSREEL: The new AVRO 698 four-engined jet bomber! As the plane thundered past the runway, the crowd were transfixed by a vision of the future. And at the top of the take-off climb, Roly Falk did something no bomber had ever done before. He barrel-rolled the aircraft. Those sort of manoeuvres could hardly fail to impress anybody who had any interest in aviation. A bomber barrel-rolling was unheard of! That was the show-off antics of the fighter boys. Roly Falk was later reprimanded - not on safety grounds, but because it was considered "unbecoming behaviour" for a bomber. At any rate, there's no denying his joyful pirouette through the sky had changed the image of the slow, lumbering bomber for ever, and, of course, the crowd loved it. Two months later, the third plane in the V-force - the Victor - took to the skies at Boscombe Down. This was the most electronically and aerodynamically advanced bomber the world had ever seen. It could go faster, higher and with greater destructive power, than all the Lancaster bombers of World War II combined. They were, for the day, like spaceships, almost. The same with the Vulcan. I mean, they were so far advanced. You have got to think of the Victor or the Vulcan, beside a Lancaster or a Shackleton to see the huge step forward that had been made. This generational advancement was considerable. A year later, the Victor appeared at the Farnborough Air Show, with a flamboyant paint job. Yes, I first saw it in the strange colour scheme it had at first at Farnborough - the black fuselage and silver wings. Even then it was an impressive aeroplane. Though, I can remember the Vulcan coming across, and it came over at fairly low level and reasonably fast, making a lot of smoke and a lot of noise, and disappeared. And then the Victor appeared and it came across fairly sedately at about 1,500 feet or so, and we thought, "Hm, different." And then he barrel-rolled - and, of course, that word got back to Manchester pretty quickly. I think the Vulcan had to do it the next day. It became a sort of battle between the two companies at that time. The following year, Russian MiG fighters shot a Lincoln out of the sky as it flew down the Berlin corridor. The days of the propeller-driven bomber, were over. Right on cue, the Royal Air Force unveiled its new jet bomber squadrons - the hi-tech nuclear-strike force. I went on one occasion with my grandfather when he was Ministry of Defence to RAF Cottesmore. It was a V-bomber base, and we actually set off a scramble. SIREN WAILS And we saw this black trails going off into the sky. And this THUNDEROUS noise! I mean, so your chest shook with the sound waves hitting it. I remember thinking, you know, I don't know if they scare the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me! Britain was also catching up in the arms race. By 1952, Churchill's government had tested the country's first atomic bomb. But that same year, the stakes had been raised even higher. The Americans exploded a thermonuclear device. It was quickly followed by a Russian megaton bomb. The A-bomb had been superseded 1,000 times by the H-bomb. Churchill demanded that Britain keep pace, and to hell with the cost. It was the price to be paid for a seat at the top table, and a chance to influence superpower aggression. In the 1957, Britain went thermo nuclear. NEWSREEL: The Valiant swung into a 1.8 G turn, through 140 degrees, on its planned escape course. DEEP RUMBLE Why does Britain do it? Well, because it's a great power. It needs the H-bomb to remain a great power. But there is another important reason. And that is that the H-bomb, like the A-bomb, is seen as a relatively cheap way of fighting war. You need hi tech, relatively cheap warfare, and that's what the bomb does for Britain. We believed that we were preventing war from happening, by being prepared for war. Wasn't it Theodore Roosevelt who said, the man who wants peace prepares for war? I believe that to be true. Or the other thing he came up with was, walk quietly and carry a big stick. As far as we were concerned, we had a big stick. Now armed to the teeth, with the technology to deliver, Britain needed men prepared to take on the burden of the independent nuclear deterrent and risk all in a third world war. The RAF began the search for chaps with the right stuff. I was personally interviewed by Air Vice Marshal, as he then was, in 1958, Bing Cross. I don't think I'd ever spoken to an Air Vice Marshal before. Do you go to church? Do you play rugby? Do you have a mess kit? Those with three of the standards Bing Cross was looking for. He was looking for character. I had to go through what was called personal vetting - PVT clearance. This went into finding out what my uncles and aunts did. It was quite intense. This was to ensure, I guess, our family and I was a true Brit. The V bombers were so advanced it took a crew of five highly-trained men to fly them. Five people - first pilot, co-pilot, navigator-radar, navigator-plotter, air electronics officer - and you were a team. The expression we used to use as the bomber crew is "marriage without sex". After 18 months of rigorous training, the RAF was ready to launch the country's nuclear capability. It was a point that government was keen to emphasise. World leaders were invited to V-bomber bases, not to buy, but to be impressed. And in some cases, to be warned. Even the new Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, got an invite. He didn't want it to show the British strength and British technological capability, and I was most impressed. I was a young man and for me at that time, all these planes were like from the future. And these planes in Great Britain, especially the Victor, there was more futuristic than the Soviet planes. To be credible as a deterrent, you have to demonstrate to your public and, of course, to the potential aggressor, that you do indeed have this capability. American strategic air command was also intrigued by Britain's V force. The same year the Victor had first flown, they had tested their own bomber - the B-52. We'd watch them go down the runway, making a lot of smoke out the back, and they'd then disappear. Eventually, after three or four minutes, you'd see it creep up above the smoke cloud... and it WAS climbing away - but nothing like our capability! The B-52 was no match for versatility, but how did the V bomber square up for accuracy? To find out Valiants and Vulcans were invited Stateside to take part in bombing competitions. The whole thing about the Americans was "big". Their bombers were big, their stations were big and everything about it was... kind of size and money. The United States Air Force guys were obviously paid considerably more than we were. They were highly regarded - got all sorts of privileges that we never saw here. They had their own, effectively, supermarkets on base, that were tax-free. So quite often an aircraft would come back with a lot of stuff in the bomb bay - particularly mowers. Petrol lawn-mowers in those days were a ludicrous price over there. Samsonite suitcases! I think, virtually everyone in the V force had at least three by the time they'd done a couple of trips to America. As the American public slept, the bombers would fly target runs over their cities, and simulate nuclear warfare. The mission was that one would fly for four or five hours and then drop a bomb at the end of the mission. Tucson and Salt Lake City were probably the main targets. One or two occasions in Los Angeles. They'd set up electronics so they could tell when we'd "released" our bomb, and then they could work out, using the various trajectories, where the bomb would actually land, and give you an assessment of your target - 500 yards from the target, or 100 yards... All our missions were all very good. I think they were all within 500 yards of the target. Whereas the Americans were getting much bigger errors. As the Cold War progressed, the destructive power of the H-bomb kept an uneasy peace between the superpowers. The bomb had become a bargaining tool - a tool most successful when held in reserve. It's hard to get it into perspective, but one bomb that was carried by say a Vulcan was approximately equivalent, in explosive power, to all the bombs dropped by the Allies on Germany in World War II. Which is mind-blowing, if you think about it. The heady days of daredevils flying victory rolls over Farnborough were over. Pilots and crews were now living permanently on the front line of MAD - mutually assured destruction. In those days, one had to sign the Official Secrets Act anyway, to become a member of the Air Force, but when you joined the V force, now things became Top Secret and Top Secret Atomic. We didn't discuss it with our families. My wife and family had no idea of what I might be called upon to do. Our mission was a one-way ride. And you are going to blow up the world. And no-one knew about it. That one-way mission would be triggered if the country's eyes and ears at Fylingdales in the North Yorkshire, detected a Soviet attack. Russian nuclear missiles were becoming more accurate with increasingly long-range capabilities. The early warning radar system would give the V force just enough time to get airborne and retaliate. The famous four-minute warning being the minimum time they expected ever to get. So, that virtually all 200-odd of V bombers would get launched within the four minutes, if necessary. Never before in the history of warfare, had minute-by-minute timing been so crucial. Pilots and their crews would live in a permanent state of emergency, waiting for the call to arms. This was QRA - quick reaction alert. The plan was that every squadron provided one aircraft and crew on QRA. And that aircraft would be bombed up and you were in your flying kit ready to go, and you'd cock the aircraft so you could be off the ground in a matter of minutes. QRA crews were separated from the distractions of normal life on base. They'd live in cabins close to the runway, within easy reach of their aircraft. We spent an awful lot of time as a crew locked in a very small room, studying the target, and all that went with it. The routing to get there, the fuel to get there, the defences we might meet on the way, the weapon we were carrying, and the target itself. St Petersburg was one. Kaliningrad. And all the capitals in the Baltics. The crews lived with three states of readiness - the normal 15 minutes alert, and occasional five minutes, and the highest of all, just two minutes. The men were constantly tested at each level, day or night. We would've each, by this stage, been given a car. If we got a call - which would come out over Tannoys across the whole station - a red to state 5 call - we'd all, the crews, clamber in these cars, rush out to our aircraft, get in the cockpit, shut the door. Or else, actually start the engines, and taxi to the end of the runway and be plugged in at the end of the runway. There were several codewords - one was to start engines, one was to take off, one was to coast out, and the final one was eight east. If that came through, that was irrevocable. You did not come back. We assumed, at that stage, there were weapons falling on the United Kingdom. And so we were being released to do the job. These exercises went on 24/7, so there was, in the back of your mind, the thought, "This might be the one where we're actually going..." It might have been half an hour later, when we're at height and on our way, that you began to think, "Oh, my goodness me. This is for real." The prospect of prolonged international tension fundamentally changed the basis of military planning. The country's war chest was bursting at the seams. Britain no longer required forces stationed throughout the globe, armed with conventional weaponry. The peace of the world now depended on the efficacy of the nuclear deterrent. Britain was spending more than 10% of gross domestic product on warfare in the early 1950s. Quite extraordinary. Historically unprecedented for peacetime. And right across the political spectrum, from right to left, it's recognised that Britain simply can't afford to maintain this level of defence expenditure in the long run. It's undermining the civilian economy. The time had come to revise not only the size but also the character of the defence plan. A new approach was needed. I remember my grandfather, early on in his prime ministership asking Duncan Sandys, who was then the Ministry of Defence, to do a review of defence capability, costs, operational requirements, likely future costing. It was quite clear from that that Britain could not afford to have the commitment that she'd had up till then. On 4th April, 1957, the Ministry of Defence, Duncan Sandys, rose to his feet in the House of Commons to present his White Paper - Outline Of Future Policy. Despite the sense of expectation, the speech was for the most part rather dull. But then came the sting in the tail. Hidden under the section Research and Development Sandys spelled out his decision to cut off the aviation industry at the knees. But Sandys had targeted the jet fighter, not the jet bomber. Fighters, he believed, now played a limited role in modern hi-tech warfare. They were expensive to develop, and there were too many private companies building them. Sandys' vision focused on a cheaper, more effective Cold War weapon, a weapon that would eventually seal the fate of the V bomber - the intercontinental ballistic missile. In America, as in Australia and Britain, the guided missile has grown from prophecy to fact. These things exist. No more aeroplanes. We'll do it all with rockets. And I remember the newspaper hoardings and everything and thinking, "Argh, that's rather screwed my career prospects!" But it's a sign of Britain's commitment to modernity, especially in warfare, that you can have a White Paper of that radical a nature. The nation's romance with the jet fighter had had its wings clipped. But there was one experimental plane, that escaped the clutches of the White Paper. An aircraft with a spine-shattering rate of climb, and a top speed of Mach 2. The RAF's first operational supersonic jet - the English Electric Lightning. The Lightning was capable of outmanoeuvring anything the Russians could throw at it. And only the very best pilots got to fly it. Martin Bee was just 23 when he was sent to fly Lightnings at RAF Coltishall. Gosh, well, look at that! That some... Bigger than I thought! I mean, this must have been every young pilot's dream. Isn't it? To fly on this? I think so, because it was the first supersonic aeroplane in level flight, that we had in the Royal Air Force. It really was a bit of a hot rod. We could go supersonic in the climb - couple of minutes up to 36,000 feet. Pretty quick going, from takeoff! That's pretty impressive. And it just moves fast, everything happens fast. And look at the sweep - 60 degrees of wing sweep. You really are being a bit of a birdman there, so it's good fun. We had a simulator. So we did all our training in the simulator. And then, one day they strapped you in and said, "Go." It's a very dense aeroplane - all the pipes sit next to each other - so you've got hot engines, hydraulic pipes, fuel pipes - so we had an awful lot of fires. And often the fire resulted in loss of control, and then the pilot would eject. But it didn't kill a lot of people. But we lost a lot of aeroplanes. One of the Lightning's key roles, was to intercept Russian bombers in the North Atlantic. The Russians might be going to Cuba, they come down on an exercise with their fleet in the Atlantic, but most of the time they were probably practising their war mission against us. That's one of the reasons, why we would intercept them so far out. Because we knew, they had a capability to launch a stand-off weapon against the UK. And what would those encounters be like? I think probably the very first one was apprehensive. You wonder what you're doing, if he's going to do something to you, or if you may be asked to do something to him. But on the other hand fascinating. You actually see the opposition for the first time face-to-face. Well, that's the thing about the Cold War, isn't it? Most people never saw the enemy. But you are absolutely on the coalface - the front line - aren't you? Yes, but, after a few interceptions you would find you could get up fairly close to the bomber and you might be 100 metres away, and you could see a chap in the rear, tail-gunner's position waving at you. And you would wave back. It was the Cold War. Pilot John Ward decided to take the Lightning out to give me a sense of its sheer power. Just amazing, isn't it? My goodness me! John. That was absolutely amazing. It really was incredible. And just to see that immense power and speed. It was a blur going past me. It's something you never get over. I'm still hooked on the adrenaline. You can see it dripping out of me now! What was it like to fly? Well, it's a Mach 2 aeroplane. Faster than a rifle bullet. Yeah, that's saying something, isn't it? First time I flew one of these solo, I was changing the radio channels in the climb, out over Norfolk, and I saw a little flicker on the instruments and suddenly realised, that even though I was climbing I was supersonic. That's just absolutely ridiculous! 1950s technology. Yeah. You know, this is... When British industry was producing some awesome pieces of kit. An "awesome piece of kit" indeed! The Lightning was retired in 1988, one year before the Berlin Wall came down. Britain was a country about to experience rapid social change. Gone were the days of doffing your cap to patrician leaders. Government was about to discover the public had a voice. On Good Friday, 1958, a group of academics, scientists and religious leaders gathered in Trafalgar Square to march in protest against the escalating arms race. PA: "..and this business of hydrogen bombs and nuclear weapons is supremely a moral issue." They'd have been happy if 50 people had turned up, but instead 10,000 braved the rain and the snow. Over the next four days they walked 60 miles to this place, the atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston - the Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament had begun. Britain's bomb has no deterrent value, it can make no difference at all to the situation between America and Russia. I think we should ban it. Definitely. Because somebody has got to make the first move, haven't they? They all thought, I'm sure, that they were doing good, or trying to stop what was happening. But this had already happened. We'd already exploded an atom bomb in Japan, we'd already exploded in Christmas Island, the Americans had worked out thermonuclear weapons in Nevada desert. So, really, it's like the moment you invent something you can't de-invent it. Can you? It was an argument that would be brought into sharp and terrifying relief. On 14th October 1962, a U2 spy plane flew high over Cuba to see if there was any truth to the rumours that the Russians were building missile bases on the island. The pictures they brought back would take the world to the brink of Armageddon. CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed, and is placing, medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? You will have your answer in due course. I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that's your decision. Americans were lucky being protected by two oceans. So, for them, enemy at the gates, or technical capability to reach the territory, generated this fear - if they technically can do it, they will do it tomorrow. As Kennedy and Khrushchev squared up to each other, it was clear to the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, that despite the conflict taking place over 4,000 miles away, it was Britain that was on the front line. I remember one afternoon, my grandfather was having a meeting with the head of the Chiefs of Staff, and the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office, and his Foreign Secretary, and I was in the room. And the Permanent Secretary said, "Prime Minister, your grandson is in the room, he shouldn't be listening. "This is classified." And my grandfather looked at him and said, "If we get it wrong, "it's going to have far more impact on him than on us." President Kennedy told my father in Vienna that we can destroy you many times. Khrushchev answered, "There is no difference. "I am not so cannibalistic as you. I can destroy you only once." It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere, as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union. On 22th October, Strategic Air Command went to DEFCON 2, one notch away from war itself. And a naval blockade was set up around Cuba. These were the most dangerous days in human history. On the 27th, Black Saturday, as the British public prepared for a weekend of football, the RAF prepared for world destruction. They brought up to the highest possible state of readiness, 02, engines running on the end of the runway, guzzling fuel, whilst they finally made up their mind - whether we scrambled or reverted to readiness state 1-5, literally, in minutes. I remembered saying to Mary, to my wife, if anything happens when you see us take off, if we've been called in, what I would like you to do is take the children, put them in the car, and then drive up to west Scotland, and I think you'll be safe there. If war began, 150 V bombers would follow a preordained flight path east. We would go in first, take out all the targets in the Baltics and the western part of Russia, which would allow the Americans to come in with their B-52s, to follow us. All the targets were strategically placed apart, so they would be flying between the blasts of actual bombs going off. So they could go in and attack the cities further into Russia. Initially we had fighter defences, obviously we'd got to worry about, and we were jamming against those. But, of course, they started deploying large numbers of surface-to-air missiles - what were called SAM-1 and SAM-2. As long as you kept turning, about every minute-and-a-half, so you did a weaving attack, in effect, they would not be able to get the missile to predict well enough to hit you. And we'd level out, literally, with hopefully no more than four or five miles to go for me to finally be able to correct on the target position and drop the weapon. Now a spent force, the V bombers would head home. But, in all practicality, there would be nothing to come home to. I mean, Britain would have been laid waste. It doesn't bear thinking about, really. It's awful. It's too awful for words. At the last minute, Khrushchev ordered his ships to turn away from the American blockade. The crisis had been averted. We credited our politicians with being rational people. We credited the Soviets with being rational people. And Khrushchev, for all his bluster, and his shoe-tapping in the United Nations, at the end of the day, when confronted by Kennedy's blockade, proved to be rational. But if Britain's deterrent had been launched, it was unclear just how effective it would have been. Two years before Cuba, there was another missile crisis. A U2 spy plane, piloted by CIA operative Gary Powers, was shot out of the sky whilst photographing military sites in Soviet airspace. What was shocking was the U2 was flying 13 miles high. If Soviet surface-to-air missiles could hit a plane at that altitude, they could also destroy a V Bomber. The first reaction, I suppose, was perhaps Duncan Sandys was right after all. The V Force had become the vulnerable force. The only option was to go under the radar. Suddenly, overnight, all the tactics changed to a high-level flight over Western Europe and, as you approached Eastern Europe, you then dive down and fly as low as you can to the ground. And then when you approached the target, you would climb up to altitude, release your bomb and then turn away and try and get home. V Bombers were given new war paint. The anti-flash white was replaced by the more prosaic camouflage. The pilots were also provided with an additional piece of equipment. We were given an eye patch as well, and the reason for that was if we were near an explosion, the rays would take out one eye. You could then take off your patch and continue with the good eye. That was the thinking at the time. It beggars belief, doesn't it? But this was... We used to practise this. We would cover up the aeroplane and put on an eye patch and fly with one eye and then take it off and fly with the other eye. Well, I have to say, that wasn't a very comforting philosophy. And I suspect had we been that close to a nuclear detonation that we were blinded, that was the end of the game in any case. But the bombers hadn't been designed for low level and they didn't adapt well to their new environment. It was extremely bumpy. I mean, I know navigators that as soon as they went low level they started being sick. And they stayed being sick for... two hours at low-level. It was pretty awful. The heavy, turbulent air was playing havoc with the integrity of the Valiant. Cracks in the rear spar of the wings began to appear. In the end, the entire Valiant fleet had to be scrapped. A sad ending to a plane that had served its country well. The Victor fared better, but the only V Bomber robust enough to thrive at low level was the delta wing Vulcan. With great foresight, the Air Ministry had already started designing the next generation of jet bomber. Their most advanced yet, the TSR2. It was another generational jump, almost as significant if not quite, as was the V Bombers beyond the piston-engine era. And I thought to myself, "My word, if that continues in development successfully, "we've got a world-beater here." This is a specification for TSR2 and, frankly, it's a pretty long list. It had to have a high-altitude, long-range nuclear strike capability so, rather like the V Bombers, but it also had to perform like a fighter at low altitude. On top of that it had to be able to fly in all weather conditions and to be able to carry the latest, most sophisticated radar system in the world. As if that wasn't enough, it also had to be able to fly at supersonic speeds of up to Mach 2. If it could achieve all this it would ensure Britain's supremacy in world aviation for years to come. One aeroplane to do everything was great. And not only was it so technically advanced, the engines and all the electric equipment were brilliant. It had everything that the Vulcan had plus everything a fighter had combined into this aeroplane. In September 1964, the first TSR2 prototype began testing at the Jet Development Centre at Boscombe Down, Wiltshire. The test pilot was Roland Beamont, a World War II fighter pilot. But Beamont and his team were already under pressure. They had been delayed due to problems with undercarriage vibrations, and a hostile press were moaning about the money being poured into the plane's development. The Labour Party promised if it won the General Election it would make further cuts to the defence budget. The TSR2 was firmly on their radar. There is one basic fact. Labour has a clear majority, we have a Labour government. You know what? This truly would have been an amazing aircraft. It's the culmination of 20 years of being at the top of their game. And it all gets ploughed into this one aircraft and then they go and axe it. It just... ..makes you want to weep. As one aeronautical engineer put it, "All modern aircraft have "four dimensions - span, length, height and politics." The TSR2 had got the first three right. The Labour government is cutting back on Britain's hi-tech projects, the projects inherited from the Tory governments of the 1950s, and is seeking to replace those with a new kind of technological revolution. Less military, less prestige-oriented, more concerned with economic development, more concerned with people's daily lives. We ended war... technologically rich. We were the world leaders in jet propulsion. Nobody else, not even the Americans, had gone as far as we had with serviceable, working, capable jet engines. But we gave it all away. We frittered it all away. What do we have today? We have a conglomerate BAE Systems, which builds bits of aeroplanes. Everyone of those model aeroplanes that you see on that desk is British, purely British. You can't point to that nowadays. By 1969, the V Force had been superseded as the delivery vehicle for World War III. Britain's strategic nuclear deterrent was handed to the Royal Navy. The Government had decided to opt for a submarine-launched ballistic missile called Polaris, an American design. It made sense. We were vulnerable, a submarine was invulnerable. It just was a superior system. Because ours, I suppose, was becoming increasingly vulnerable and penetrating was going to be more difficult with each year that went by. Just one year earlier, the Americans orbited the moon and, for the first time in our history, we clearly saw our world for what it was. We moved from being the wide open spaces of the ocean to being very conscious that we live on a small dot on the infinity of space and we are all in it together. And the jet age brought us together in a way almost more than the wireless age did, or the television age. The jet age had made the world a smaller place, but it changed our perceptions of our planet and of ourselves and it defined where we lived and how we lived and, for 20-odd years, it helped make the world a safer place. Britain's contribution had been one of technological genius, bravery and visionary creations that amply met the terrifying realities of the day Yet the country's lead, a dream of a world-beating aviation industry, were ultimately brought back down to earth. An opportunity lost. We probably attempted to do too much. We spread our resources perhaps too thinly. Never again, I think do we have the overall capability to go it alone. And that was a proud boast, I think, we had in the '50s and '60s. Yes, I am proud, because we kept the peace all that time, for 15 years. And a lot of people said we couldn't do it, but we did. Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd # Blue skies, smiling at me... #