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Britain may be an insignificant
little rock in the North Atlantic,

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but for centuries,
the island we call home

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was coveted by foreign powers,

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making fear of invasion
a fact of life.

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From north to south,
east to west,

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2,000 years of threats
have left their mark.

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In this series, we'll seek out
these reminders,

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from weaponry and castles
to warships,

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as we tell the story
of a centuries-long obsession

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with attack from overseas.

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From my headquarters
here at Walmer Castle,

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I'll be exploring
how a thirst for power,

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both here and abroad, led to
some of the most turbulent periods

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in British history...

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There's now the concern

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that Hitler is going to continue.

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..and getting my hands on
some truly extraordinary artefacts.

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And this is the original?

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Engineer Professor Danielle George
and historian Dr Onyeka Nubia

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will be travelling the UK
in search of the physical evidence

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that tells of
a centuries-long struggle...

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Look at this all the way up as well!

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..and experiencing how those
foreign threats impacted the lives

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of ordinary people.

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Walking in here,
I think I would be over-awed.

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I'm Professor Alice Roberts,

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and this is the story
of Fortress Britain.

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CHURCHILL: To defend our island,
whatever the cost may be.

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In October 1962, the world
held its breath as America

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and the Soviet Union engaged
in a game of nuclear brinkmanship.

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Do you, Ambassador Zorin,
deny that the USSR has...

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..placed and is placing medium
and intermediate-range missiles

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and sites in Cuba? Yes or no?

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Don't wait for the translation.
Yes or no?

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I have directed the Armed Forces
to prepare for any eventualities.

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The Cuban Missile Crisis threatened
to turn the Cold War red hot,

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and if the unthinkable happened,
Britain was on the front line.

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This is the story of how Britain,

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still bruised and battered
from World War II,

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was forced to adapt to a terrifying
new kind of warfare.

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It would require vast new defences
and our own nuclear deterrent.

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It was a world in which our closest
ally refused to help us...

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The Americans don't trust us.

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They shut down nuclear secrets.

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What this does is turn
Fortress Britain

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into a kind of prison of paranoia.

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..and one where we had to prepare
for the nightmare scenario.

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What we're looking at here
is five or six miles

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from ground zero. Right.

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If you were at ground zero,
it would be completely wiped out.

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Joining me at Walmer Castle
to explain how Britain found itself

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at the heart of a potential nuclear
Armageddon

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is historian Dr Jessica Douthwaite.

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Jessica, it's 1962. East and West
are facing each other off

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with nuclear weapons in their hands.
How does it come to that?

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In the early 20th century, with
the development of nuclear science,

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authors and artists were already
imagining what a nuclear future

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would look like. I've got here
a book by HG Wells,

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which was written in 1914,
called The World Set Free.

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This extract is taken from
the moment the bomb goes off

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and he writes, "Certainly
it seems now that nothing

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"could have been more obvious to the
people of the earlier 20th century

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"than the rapidity with which war
was becoming impossible.

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"They did not see it until
the atomic bombs burst

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"in their fumbling hands.

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"Yet the broad facts must have
glared upon any intelligent mind."

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1914, he wrote this.

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And then, of course, what
he's imagining there is realised.

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So, when does fiction become fact?

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By 1940,
there are scientists in Britain,

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who are Jewish emigres
from Germany,

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who imagine how nuclear fission
could be put to use in a weapon.

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They're very fearful that Hitler
will be beginning a nuclear project

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in Nazi Germany.

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And of course, during
the Second World War,

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we have two atomic bombs
being dropped,

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so that research and development
happens incredibly quickly.

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It happens extremely quickly

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and that's because of the combined
efforts of the Manhattan Project,

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which was an American-based project,
drawing together international

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expertise and huge economic
resources and material resources

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to work on engineering
a nuclear weapon.

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And then we have the bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well.

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Yep. So, that brings us then to
the end of the Second World War.

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So, Churchill assumed that America
and Britain would continue

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to cooperate in atomic
weapons development

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and had agreed to that
with President Roosevelt,

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but President Truman had
a completely different impression

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of how the end of the war
would be managed.

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So, by 1946, we end up with this,

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which is what's known as the McMahon
Act, the Energy Act of 1946.

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Basically, it means that
any agreements up until this point

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with overseas partners
are null and void.

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British engineers,
British scientists,

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British politicians in particular
are completely locked out

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of any of the new weapons
research and development

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and new knowledge
being created in the US.

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But worse was still to come.

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Having been shunned by America,
in August 1949, Britain received

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the terrifying news that
the Soviet Union

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had successfully tested
THEIR first nuclear weapon.

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So, America had a nuclear bomb,

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the Soviet Union had a nuclear bomb,

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but we didn't.

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And because Britain was
a founding member of Nato,

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whose primary objective was
to counter the rising threat

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posed by the Eastern Bloc, it meant
that we were now also a target.

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Professor Danielle George is in Fife
on the east coast of Scotland

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to discover how we were preparing
to defend ourselves,

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should tensions spill over
into a full-blown nuclear war.

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The bombs that brought devastation
to Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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were dropped by B-29 bombers.

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And, likewise, in 1950s Britain,
it would be aircraft

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that would carry out any nuclear
attack from the Soviet Union.

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The British response to such
a potential airborne attack

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may at first glance look
rather underwhelming.

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Designed to look like
an unassuming farmhouse,

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it is, in fact, the entrance
to a top-secret bunker.

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I'm here to meet
Professor Andrew Futter

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of the University of Leicester,

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an expert in British
nuclear strategy.

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What a great place.

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I mean, this place is just vast,
isn't it?

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But what would it have been
used for?

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So, this bunker, one of
over 200 that were built

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across the United Kingdom
in the early Cold War,

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were essentially our preparations
for nuclear war. Wow.

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This was part of a network
of similar bunkers

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spread across the country,
all connected.

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One of the main objectives
would have been air defence. Wow.

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And how far down are we?
This bunker ranges over four floors,

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between 45 and 135ft
below ground level.

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In an emergency, the bunker
would have housed 300 people.

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Everything they'd need to survive

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and communicate,
should the worst happen,

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with what was left
of the outside world.

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So, this is the radar
intercept room,

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where any incursions of Soviet
bombers would be mapped out

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on the screens that you see
in front of you.

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The radar at the time had a range
of around 150 to 200 miles,

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which may give you anything
up to half an hour of warning

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about a possible Soviet attack
against the British Isles. Right.

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And what's going to happen
in that half an hour?

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Well, in that half an hour,
messages have to go out

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to intercept aircraft, those
aircraft have to be in the air,

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and hopefully some of those aircraft
shoot down the incoming bombers.

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But for all this technology, there
will still be some that get through,

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and you don't need many,
do you, to get through?

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They may well be able to shoot down
a number of Soviet bombers,

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but there was still a belief and
a fear that the bomber

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would always get through.

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And if they did, it was up
to the Royal Observer Corps

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to monitor the damage.

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Wow. Look at this.

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So, this is the Royal Observer
Corps Operations Room

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and this would have been the place
where all the information filtered

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in about what was happening -
the shape of the attack, where,

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if anywhere, had been hit
with nuclear weapons

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and, potentially, the extent
of the damage.

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In the late 1940s
and the early 1950s, too,

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we're still talking about bombs of
the size of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

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which were still very large,
but compared to what came later

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were actually quite small.

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And these were bombs in
the range of 20 kilotons,

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so, if we look at somewhere
like Edinburgh, a 20 kiloton bomb

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would perhaps destroy
four or five square miles

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of the centre of the city.

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In those early years, when there
were relatively few nuclear weapons,

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there was a feeling that although
an attack would be catastrophic,

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there would still be large parts
of the country that would survive

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and need to be governed.

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Oh, wow! Look at this.

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It's amazing, isn't it?
Yeah. It really feels like,

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you know, you're at the heart
of the operation.

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Yeah, and that's exactly what it is.
The beating heart of the bunker.

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This is where the major
decisions would be made.

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This is where plans
and all the information

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about what was happening in
the world outside would be

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brought in and presumably where...

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Possibly where nuclear war
would be orchestrated and directed.

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So, who's working in this room?

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This is the Government
control centre.

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This is where representatives
of all the different departments,

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everything from emergency services
to the military to the Home Office

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to Fisheries to a whole host
of different things,

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and this was essentially
a Government-in-waiting.

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The idea was that the UK
would be essentially sliced up

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into smaller pieces,
each of which would have

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its own regional government
and regional governor,

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in the possibility that the UK
couldn't function as a state.

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And there's a room here behind me
that's got a bed in it.

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That's for the senior person, is it?

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So, that's the senior person.
That person would,

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as the war unfolded, still take
orders from the Prime Minister

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or from a regional
or a national leader.

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But, again, in extremis,
if the communication was lost,

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if other parts of the Government
hierarchy were destroyed,

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that person would essentially
become in charge -

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not just of this particular bunker,
but of the region around it.

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So we've got 300 people in here,
but they've got families as well.

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What's happening to their families?
They're not coming into here.

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This is specifically for
Government officials

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to continue running the war and
to plan for what comes afterwards.

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I can't imagine being
a Government official in here

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and leaving my husband
and my daughter elsewhere

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knowing what can potentially happen
to them. That's a horrible thought.

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It's entirely possible, I suspect,
that people wouldn't come

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and report to the bunkers,
that would rather stay

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with their families or would try and
help their close friends and family.

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As a new world order started
to emerge,

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many felt that without our
own nuclear capability,

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Britain was facing all the dangers
of being on the nuclear front line,

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but with little influence
and no effective deterrent.

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As Britain spent heavily to defend
itself from a Soviet nuclear attack,

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it faced another enemy -
an enemy within.

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Shut out of the new
nuclear world order,

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we were striving to create
our own nuclear deterrent.

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However, we were getting no help
from our supposed closest ally -

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America.

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The fact was, they simply
didn't trust us.

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Dr Onyeka Nubia has travelled
to London to find out why.

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It's hard to imagine that this
rather nondescript building

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in the centre of London's Mayfair
was once the headquarters of MI5.

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From the end of the Second World War
until the 1970s,

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this building played
an important role

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in Britain's intelligence services.

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But the truth is,
for much of that time,

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Britain's Secret Service
was anything but.

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In the 1930s, a group of
establishment figures

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who became known as
the Cambridge Five

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were recruited by
Soviet intelligence

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whilst they were at
Cambridge University.

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They were Soviet spies working
inside British intelligence,

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and some of them had access
to Britain's nuclear secrets.

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That house there is where
Burgess and Blunt lived.

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I wonder what it would have
been like for Burgess

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and Blunt and the others -
you know, living in London,

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pretending to be something
other than what they were.

239
00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:27,320
But how were they operating?
And who, if anyone, suspected them?

240
00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,560
Professor Richard Aldrich
of the University of Warwick

241
00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:36,720
is a leading expert on the complex
web of Cold War espionage.

242
00:13:37,720 --> 00:13:42,040
Great. Did you manage to lose
your MI5 tails? I think so!

243
00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:47,240
So, Richard, what information
were they giving to the Russians?

244
00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:52,160
So the Cambridge Five mostly
worked in MI6, the Foreign Office.

245
00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:55,960
They're handing over lots of top
intelligence reports,

246
00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:59,760
stuff about atomic secrets,
cabinet minutes -

247
00:13:59,800 --> 00:14:01,960
a vast volume of stuff,

248
00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:05,320
and some of Britain's really
top-secret material.

249
00:14:05,360 --> 00:14:08,720
We think the Cambridge Five
gave the Russians about

250
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:12,320
20,000 secret documents. 20,000?!

251
00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:15,360
Were they the top echelon
of British intelligence?

252
00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:19,080
Kim Philby,
who's perhaps the star spy,

253
00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:21,800
he's actually being prepared
to be head of MI6.

254
00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:24,080
They're getting him ready
for the top job. Wow!

255
00:14:24,120 --> 00:14:28,240
This was in spying terms, you know,
an Olympic achievement

256
00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:29,640
on the part of the KGB. Wow.

257
00:14:29,680 --> 00:14:32,440
How was this information delivered?

258
00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:36,240
This isn't the world of secret
cameras and microdots.

259
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:40,520
It's actually a very drunk guy,
Burgess, with a briefcase

260
00:14:40,560 --> 00:14:42,800
bumbling in through
the door of a pub.

261
00:14:42,840 --> 00:14:45,160
Actually, literally, he dropped
some of the documents -

262
00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:47,520
they used to blow down the streets.

263
00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:51,800
The KGB isn't being run
particularly well, and, actually,

264
00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:54,800
the spy hunts by the British
aren't being run particularly well.

265
00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:59,160
This is... This is chaos and
confusion rather than conspiracy.

266
00:14:59,200 --> 00:15:00,520
Remarkable, actually.

267
00:15:00,560 --> 00:15:04,480
Most of us like to feel that
we are heroes in our own story.

268
00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:07,120
And I'm wondering,
how did they see themselves?

269
00:15:07,160 --> 00:15:09,800
I think initially they saw
themselves as heroes.

270
00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:14,000
They're doing this initially out of
anti-fascism in the 1930s.

271
00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:17,120
They don't like appeasement.
Even in the Second World War,

272
00:15:17,160 --> 00:15:20,080
they feel they're helping
the Russian war effort.

273
00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:24,920
But as the Cold War sets in,
they start to have doubts.

274
00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:27,560
It's like being part of a drug gang.
Once you're in... Yeah.

275
00:15:27,600 --> 00:15:29,280
Pull you back in!
Yeah, you can't really...

276
00:15:29,320 --> 00:15:31,120
Yeah. There's no way.
There's no way out.

277
00:15:31,160 --> 00:15:33,200
They were under
psychological pressure.

278
00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:35,320
They were living double lives.

279
00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:38,520
And they dealt with that partly
by drinking really heavily,

280
00:15:38,560 --> 00:15:41,320
so they were...
They were in a mess, frankly.

281
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:45,360
British and American authorities

282
00:15:45,400 --> 00:15:48,960
realised that British intelligence
had been compromised

283
00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:53,240
after Burgess and Maclean defected
to the Soviet Union.

284
00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:58,640
The British Government attempted
to conceal this security breach,

285
00:15:58,680 --> 00:16:00,760
but it was too late.

286
00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:06,560
Probably the most damaging
thing is just...

287
00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:11,840
..a collapse of belief
in British security,

288
00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:14,480
so essentially what this does,
what this does

289
00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:18,600
is turn Fortress Britain into
a kind of prison of paranoia.

290
00:16:18,640 --> 00:16:22,440
The Americans don't trust us.
They shut down nuclear secrets.

291
00:16:22,480 --> 00:16:26,200
You know, this is a problem if
you're trying to share intelligence,

292
00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:29,400
if you're trying to do an atomic
programme. Who do you trust?

293
00:16:31,400 --> 00:16:34,720
Although there was a subsequent
security crackdown,

294
00:16:34,760 --> 00:16:38,600
the damage was already done,
and the relationship

295
00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:42,240
between Britain and America
would never be the same again.

296
00:16:46,160 --> 00:16:50,640
If Britain was to establish itself
in this new nuclear world order,

297
00:16:50,680 --> 00:16:54,400
it would need its own
nuclear capability.

298
00:16:54,440 --> 00:16:59,080
But with America unwilling to help,
we would have to do it alone.

299
00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:05,480
Jessica, once the Manhattan Project
ends, this means that

300
00:17:05,520 --> 00:17:08,640
British scientists are on their own,
but they've been working

301
00:17:08,680 --> 00:17:11,160
very closely with that team
in the States,

302
00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:14,520
so how does this play out?
Prior to the Second World War,

303
00:17:14,560 --> 00:17:17,880
there was a really rich community
of scientists in the UK

304
00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:22,120
who were working on various
pockets of atomic science.

305
00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:26,880
And how quickly are they able
to create something which works,

306
00:17:26,920 --> 00:17:29,200
which creates a nuclear explosion?

307
00:17:29,240 --> 00:17:32,880
Yeah, so five years after
they started, in 1952,

308
00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:35,760
there's a successful detonation
of an atomic explosive

309
00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:38,680
in the Montebello Islands
in the northwest of Australia.

310
00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:41,720
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
Slowly, the seconds tick away.

311
00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:48,600
EXPLOSION

312
00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:51,280
"This bang has changed the world."
Yep.

313
00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:53,760
"And today, Britain is
Great Britain again." Mm.

314
00:17:53,800 --> 00:17:56,920
I think the weapons development
programme was seen as

315
00:17:56,960 --> 00:18:00,960
a way of proving to the US
that Britain was capable of this

316
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:03,280
and therefore capable
of another partnership.

317
00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:04,960
You know, after this
proof of concept,

318
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:07,120
this is now going to become
a weapon. Yep.

319
00:18:07,160 --> 00:18:09,960
So, we've got some replica parts
that would have been used

320
00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:14,280
in the early Blue Danube, which was
Britain's first nuclear weapon.

321
00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:18,480
These parts were actually
built by an ex-RAF armourer

322
00:18:18,520 --> 00:18:22,120
called Peter Sharp, so an armourer
would have loaded the weapon

323
00:18:22,160 --> 00:18:24,480
with the fissile core,
which is this.

324
00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:27,200
So he was very familiar with
the real thing? Yes. Yeah.

325
00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:29,120
So, it was nicknamed the Gauntlet.

326
00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:33,320
The Gauntlet, containing
either uranium or plutonium,

327
00:18:33,360 --> 00:18:35,600
and also polonium,

328
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:38,680
would have been slotted into
a sphere of high explosives,

329
00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:41,880
which, in turn was placed
into a bomb casing.

330
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:44,400
When the high explosives
were detonated,

331
00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:48,480
they triggered a chain reaction,
releasing vast amounts of energy

332
00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:50,720
in a fraction of a second.

333
00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:56,160
Tell me about Australia though,
because, you know,

334
00:18:56,200 --> 00:18:59,120
we're choosing to test our bombs
in Australia.

335
00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:03,000
The locations where these were
tested were Indigenous homelands.

336
00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:07,400
They got very little recognition
for their land being used

337
00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:11,040
and the implications of
radioactivity for centuries.

338
00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:14,040
Do they know how dangerous these
weapons were, the after-effects?

339
00:19:14,080 --> 00:19:15,800
No, but very few people did.

340
00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:19,080
By the late '50s, people began
to be quite wary of

341
00:19:19,120 --> 00:19:23,200
this notion of atmospheric testing,
radioactivity

342
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:26,360
in the air, in the soil,
in our food,

343
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:29,240
whereas in the early '50s,
when this all began,

344
00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:31,840
it was just unknown.

345
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:36,920
The nuclear theory
had become a reality,

346
00:19:36,960 --> 00:19:40,080
transforming Britain's
defensive capability.

347
00:19:42,360 --> 00:19:44,280
Danielle has travelled to Suffolk

348
00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:47,480
to what was once part
of RAF Barnham,

349
00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:50,440
where our first atomic bombs
were stored.

350
00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:56,560
It's really hard to overstate
the pace of development

351
00:19:56,600 --> 00:19:58,840
for those at the sharp end
of operations.

352
00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:03,240
The last World War II Lancaster
bomber had been retired around 1954.

353
00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:06,400
Yet at the same time,
ground crews were preparing

354
00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:08,640
for life in the atomic age.

355
00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:12,840
I've arranged to meet
Richard Eldred.

356
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:15,840
His family have owned the site
since the 1960s

357
00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:18,160
and understand
the importance of preserving

358
00:20:18,200 --> 00:20:20,080
this part of our Cold War history...

359
00:20:21,520 --> 00:20:24,520
..the place where we kept
our first nuclear deterrent.

360
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:28,840
So, Richard, why here?

361
00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:30,680
What's special about this site?

362
00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:34,640
Well, this site was very much
on the military planners' map.

363
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:36,280
As early as the First World War,

364
00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:39,640
there was mustard gas
storage nearby.

365
00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:43,920
The very first tanks were trialled
here on Thetford Heath

366
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:45,480
and then in the Second World War,

367
00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:49,440
there was certainly a very large
munition store just over the way,

368
00:20:49,480 --> 00:20:53,040
so it wasn't a surprise
that they chose this area

369
00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:55,600
for nuclear weapons storage.

370
00:20:57,360 --> 00:20:58,600
Wow. Look at this.

371
00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:00,160
I mean, I'm guessing
this is a replica,

372
00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:01,480
but is it a life-sized replica?

373
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:03,400
Yep, this is pretty near life size.

374
00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:04,600
24 foot long.

375
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:07,680
The original bomb was 10,000 pounds.

376
00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:09,400
Wow. And how was it stored?

377
00:21:09,440 --> 00:21:12,960
It's stored in two parts -
the nuclear component in one area

378
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:15,240
and the TNT and the casing
in another.

379
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:17,400
Wow. It's just colossal.

380
00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:20,560
This is one of three buildings
constructed

381
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:23,240
to house the bomb casings
and high explosives.

382
00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:26,240
Almost 60 metres long,

383
00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:29,720
most of the structure is surrounded
by protective earthworks.

384
00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:32,880
Overhead,
you can still see the winches

385
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:35,640
that were once used to manoeuvre
the huge bombs

386
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:37,720
into this safe storage area.

387
00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:50,720
This looks incredible, Richard.

388
00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:53,600
Is this how it would have
originally looked? No.

389
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:57,200
Originally, it was open-plan.
In fact, there's a great picture

390
00:21:57,240 --> 00:21:59,400
from 1966 showing my brother, Mark,

391
00:21:59,440 --> 00:22:02,560
aged two, standing in this building
with Mum and Dad,

392
00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:05,280
showing it open-plan as it was. Wow.

393
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:09,800
The unit would have had space
for about 15 Blue Danube bombs.

394
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:15,280
The Gauntlets housing the nuclear
components of the bomb

395
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:18,680
were stored in a series of
57 small buildings

396
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:22,040
distributed across the site,
known as hutches.

397
00:22:23,280 --> 00:22:25,280
As well as the bombs stored here,

398
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:27,920
the components of three bombs
were also stored

399
00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:30,360
at key RAF bomber bases,

400
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:33,760
ready to be combined for use
at a moment's notice.

401
00:22:36,360 --> 00:22:40,120
At one of the hutches,
I'm meeting Richard's father, Keith,

402
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:42,000
who, along with his wife, Margot,

403
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:45,040
bought the site from the MOD
back in 1966.

404
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:48,480
How are you? This looks incredible.
Would you like to look inside?

405
00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:50,480
I would love to. Thank you.
OK, right.

406
00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:52,720
KEITH GRUNTS
So this is where

407
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,440
the fissile cores were stored?
Absolutely, yes. Wow, OK.

408
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:57,480
Look at this.
Yes, that's one of the safes.

409
00:22:57,520 --> 00:22:59,680
This is amazing! Wow. Can I open it?

410
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:00,800
Yep.

411
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:02,240
Ooh.

412
00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:03,640
Wow, it's heavy.

413
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:06,840
Yes. Oh, my goodness, yeah.

414
00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:08,280
The muscles on this.

415
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:10,560
Oh, wow.
So you can actually see the...

416
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:15,080
Yes, you can get the container out.
Oh, brill. Look at that.

417
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:18,160
Wow. Yes.
This is heavy as well, actually.

418
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:22,000
Lead-lined. Lead-lined, yes.
Yeah. Weighs about 20 pounds.

419
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,520
Right, so we've got
the fissile cores in here. Yep.

420
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,080
I mean, did they understand
how dangerous it was?

421
00:23:27,120 --> 00:23:29,520
I think they knew
that it was dangerous,

422
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,440
but I doubt that they knew
how dangerous it was.

423
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:36,440
In fact, that would be changed
once every month or so

424
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:40,480
because the polonium only
had a half life of 130 days.

425
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:44,000
Wow. And so they had to
change it every month.

426
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:49,720
Whether the person who changed it
took enough precaution,

427
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:50,760
I don't know.

428
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:55,360
When that fissile core
was taken to be changed,

429
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:57,800
the siren sounded
and everybody on the station

430
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:02,440
had to freeze and stay frozen
until it was back inside again. Wow.

431
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:05,840
Really? And then the all clear went
and then everybody could move again.

432
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,720
Wow. Yes, I think they knew
nuclear was dangerous,

433
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,200
but I don't think
they knew how dangerous.

434
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:14,920
Did the locals know what
was going on in this site?

435
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:17,720
I mean, how secret was it?
No, they didn't know.

436
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:21,480
In fact, the general story was
that they were training chimpanzees.

437
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:23,960
So training chimpanzees for
the space race? Absolutely, yes.

438
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:25,920
Oh, right. That's what they thought
was happening here?

439
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,480
That's what they thought. That's
what the local people thought.

440
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:32,680
Whilst the creation of Blue Danube
was a seminal moment

441
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,200
in our nuclear history, such was
the pace of development

442
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:40,200
that by 1957, Britain had joined
America and the Soviet Union

443
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:43,440
in testing a hydrogen bomb,

444
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:47,600
a thermonuclear device potentially
1,000 times more powerful.

445
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:51,320
But in those early days,
we were still missing

446
00:24:51,360 --> 00:24:53,160
a crucial piece of the puzzle -

447
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:57,520
an aircraft that could actually
carry the weapons.

448
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,440
As unbelievable as it may seem,

449
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,480
when Britain's Blue Danube
atomic bombs

450
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:10,920
were first delivered
to the RAF in 1953,

451
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:14,960
the Air Force had no bombers
capable of carrying them.

452
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,280
The solution, when it came,

453
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,640
would capture the public's
imagination

454
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:21,840
and become the stuff of legend.

455
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:24,960
Known as the V bombers,

456
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:28,080
the Vickers Valiant,
the Handley Page Victor

457
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:29,800
and the Avro Vulcan

458
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:33,680
represented a quantum leap
in aircraft design.

459
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:35,520
By 1957,

460
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:38,840
all three of these high-altitude
bombers had entered service

461
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:42,920
and were a cut above anything either
the Russians or the Americans

462
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:44,800
had at their disposal.

463
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:49,400
Having our own nuclear weapons and
aircraft with which to launch them

464
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,240
meant that,
although still part of Nato,

465
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:56,120
we were now also
an independent nuclear power.

466
00:25:57,720 --> 00:25:59,960
To discover more about
the V bombers,

467
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,680
Danielle has travelled
to Southend Airport.

468
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:08,480
In their heyday, these planes
achieved almost celebrity status.

469
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:12,880
For many, they represented a new,
modern and powerful Britain

470
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:16,800
and a seismic shift
in our nuclear capability.

471
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,720
I'm here to see an example
of arguably the most famous

472
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,840
of the trio, the Avro Vulcan.

473
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:27,240
XL426 is a stunning example,

474
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:28,920
kept in a taxiable condition

475
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,440
by a group of volunteers called
the Vulcan Restoration Trust.

476
00:26:34,120 --> 00:26:36,280
She regularly wows the crowds,

477
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:40,600
eager to catch a glimpse of this
piece of Cold War aviation history.

478
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,480
She's currently undergoing
an extensive service,

479
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:50,560
allowing me a rare perspective
of this extraordinary aircraft.

480
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,800
I'm here to meet trust member
and former Vulcan pilot,

481
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:58,120
Group Captain Bill Burnett.

482
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:04,080
Right, Bill, as an engineer,
I'm absolutely in awe of this.

483
00:27:04,120 --> 00:27:07,160
It's just stunningly beautiful,
isn't it?

484
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,800
Well, when you think it was designed
in the late '40s,

485
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:14,680
way ahead of its time, you know,
it's staggering.

486
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,840
This new breed of aircraft
would also require

487
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,960
a new breed of aircrew to fly them.

488
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:23,640
24 hours a day,

489
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:28,720
every V bomber squadron had
quick-reaction alert crews

490
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:32,720
ready to scramble at a moment's
notice to defend their country.

491
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,360
Like all V bombers,
the Vulcan had a crew of five.

492
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:40,560
The two pilots sat up top

493
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:44,000
with the remaining three sitting
below and behind them.

494
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:49,120
So, you're on base.

495
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:51,400
You hear the call.
You know, what do you do?

496
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:53,800
How long have you got to
get in and get going?

497
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:56,800
Well, we normally worked
15 minutes readiness.

498
00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:00,440
When the hooter sounded,
you ran to the car, got in.

499
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:02,600
You then get into the aircraft.

500
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,880
Once in the aircraft, you'd hear
the state that was being declared.

501
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:08,960
05, 02, or start engines.

502
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:13,000
So 02 is 2 minutes to go or
start engine is literally you're...

503
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:15,600
Yeah. ..you're off.
So you had one button to press.

504
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,520
All the engines
start up and off you go.

505
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:19,640
And then you're off.
And so how was that, then?

506
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:21,480
Were you always feeling
like it could be now?

507
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:23,600
It could be now. Absolutely.
Did you ever relax?

508
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,440
Not really, because when you heard
the click of the Tannoy,

509
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,320
you didn't know whether they were
going to declare there was fog about

510
00:28:29,360 --> 00:28:31,560
or if you were going
to be scrambled.

511
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:33,240
The V bombers
were originally designed

512
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:37,000
to operate at high altitude,
but in May 1960,

513
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:41,320
American pilot Gary Powers,
flying a U-2 spy plane over Russia,

514
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:45,280
was shot down by a missile
at an altitude of 13 miles.

515
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,360
This meant that the V bomber tactics
switched to low level missions

516
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:52,200
to avoid radar detection.

517
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:57,520
With the cockpit removed
for the engineering work,

518
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:00,640
it's difficult to imagine
that if the crews were required

519
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:02,480
to launch a nuclear attack,

520
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,560
the cockpit would have been
blacked out with screens

521
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,360
to protect their eyesight from
the blinding flashes

522
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:11,880
of nuclear explosions that would
be detonating around them.

523
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:15,640
And just to add to the challenge,

524
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:19,320
flying at low level meant
there was considerable turbulence.

525
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:22,720
And, yes,
it used to bounce quite a bit.

526
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:26,560
Did it? Because you were only
flying 300 feet above the ground.

527
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,400
But you did have the help
of terrain-following radar.

528
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,720
So you can actually go on
instruments, flying at low level.

529
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,520
You've dropped the weapon,
where do you go then?

530
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,520
You wouldn't be going back
to the UK, that's for sure. OK.

531
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:41,600
You'd find out what was available.

532
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:46,160
Everybody had a plan at the end
of it, where to go. Where to go.

533
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:48,320
It's strange that people
wouldn't have known

534
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:50,560
what you were potentially
ready to do.

535
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:54,240
No. And I think that was
a nice secret to have. Was it?

536
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:57,160
You felt you were doing
something good for the country.

537
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,680
In their mission
to deter and defend,

538
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,880
the crews of the V bombers
put themselves at enormous risk.

539
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:07,040
But the production of the weapons
the planes carried

540
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,720
posed a different type of risk -
one that would impact

541
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,080
on an unsuspecting British public.

542
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:20,200
In order to produce a nuclear
weapon, you need the raw materials,

543
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:22,080
and the raw materials
need to be produced,

544
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:23,440
so, where was that happening?

545
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,360
So, you need a nuclear reactor
to produce the plutonium

546
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:28,720
that's used in a nuclear weapon.

547
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,880
And here in Britain, two of the
main nuclear reactors are sited

548
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,800
at a place called Windscale,
which is on the coast of Cumbria,

549
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:36,360
just on the edge of
the Lake District.

550
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:37,720
So, as far as the public knew,

551
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:41,360
this is about nuclear energy
rather than weapons.

552
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:45,080
Yes. Because on the same site,
there was also the early development

553
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,960
of a nuclear energy power
plant at the same time.

554
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:52,200
But in 1957, the nuclear reactor
at Windscale explodes

555
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,320
and there's a massive fire.

556
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:57,840
This is a real disaster.
A fire breaks out in the reactor.

557
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,120
It's a huge accident with
massive consequences.

558
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,760
There's very little knowledge
on how to deal with it.

559
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:05,800
The fire's raging for three days

560
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,280
and it takes four attempts
to put it out.

561
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,440
The three first attempts
completely fail.

562
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,840
On the fourth attempt, they decide
to cut off the air supply

563
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,120
to the reactor,
and that actually works.

564
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:19,840
In fact, this is the general manager
of Windscale and his name

565
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:24,440
was Tom Tuohy, and he actually
assisted in putting out the fire

566
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:26,640
by scaling one of
the nuclear reactors

567
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:29,120
and assisting
professional firefighters.

568
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,720
But I think that just shows
how serious it was,

569
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:34,440
how emotionally invested
the personnel were,

570
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:38,520
but also how collective the effort
was to stop it from getting worse.

571
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:42,400
Yeah, and a real heroic act to
wade into that. Certainly, yeah.

572
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:47,000
What was the fallout -
both in radioactive terms -

573
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,680
but in political and social
terms as well?

574
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:51,680
This event really brought home

575
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,320
the environmental consequences
of radioactivity.

576
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,080
Cumbria is well-known
for its farming, especially milk,

577
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:02,160
and the Government wasn't
really sure how much was irradiated,

578
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:06,600
but declared that milk from
within a 200-mile radius

579
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:07,920
would be condemned.

580
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:11,360
So that's the significance of this
milk bottle? Yeah. Yeah.

581
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,480
Milk - it's wholesome,
you're giving it to your children,

582
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:18,760
and suddenly you're worried
about this being a potential source

583
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:23,120
of radioactivity, of radiation.
How bad was this disaster?

584
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:26,960
I mean, presumably, there is a lot
of radiation being released

585
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:28,440
into the atmosphere?

586
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,120
Cancers in the local area increased,

587
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:34,720
livelihoods were affected,
particularly those of local farmers

588
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:36,400
who relied on dairy farming.

589
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:40,600
The moment that people realised
that nuclear science could

590
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:44,240
actually infiltrate their own homes
via food and drink

591
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:45,920
was a watershed moment.

592
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:52,960
The nuclear revolution taking place
in the 1950s

593
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,600
was happening at breakneck speed.

594
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:59,240
And should the unthinkable happen,
the Government needed a plan

595
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:02,040
to protect the civilian population.

596
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:07,160
A key part of their strategy was
the Civil Defence Corps -

597
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:11,160
a Crown service created in 1949 -
which was tasked

598
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:16,080
with taking local control in
the aftermath of a nuclear attack.

599
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:18,920
ARCHIVE: Join now.

600
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,880
We need men and women
for headquarters staff,

601
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:23,880
air raid wardens,

602
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:27,600
rescue workers, welfare
workers and pioneers.

603
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,840
During the 1950s, the Civil
Defence Corps' headquarters

604
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:38,360
for the strategically vital city
of Portsmouth were housed here,

605
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,400
in the Victorian Fort Widley.

606
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:46,480
Onyeka has arranged to meet
Taras Young, an author and expert

607
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:49,360
on Britain's Cold War
civil defence strategy.

608
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:54,680
Taras has agreed to show Onyeka
the old Civil Defence control rooms

609
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,760
that are buried deep within
the fort's underground complex.

610
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:10,960
So, you can see we have a few
Civil Defence training posters

611
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:13,440
on the walls here.
They're fantastic.

612
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,240
Wow. And these are made
in the 1950s?

613
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,000
These would have been late
'50s, early '60s.

614
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,560
These posters are talking
about the first hydrogen bombs,

615
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:24,440
so they're talking about a
ten-megaton bomb,

616
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:28,640
which is about 500 times the power
of the bomb at Nagasaki.

617
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:31,760
So, this one here is before? Yep.

618
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,680
And then that's after.
Is that right? That's right.

619
00:34:34,720 --> 00:34:39,000
What we're looking at here is five
or six miles from ground zero.

620
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:42,400
Right. So, yeah, you're seeing the
kind of levels of destruction

621
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:44,040
that would be a little bit
further out.

622
00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:46,680
If you were at ground zero,
it would be completely wiped out.

623
00:34:46,720 --> 00:34:51,480
How does the Civil Defence Corps
actually prepare people for that?

624
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:53,960
Yeah, it's something that
they had to wrestle with.

625
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,120
They talked about how would we
deal with the millions of survivors.

626
00:34:57,160 --> 00:34:59,800
So, they didn't focus on the people
who'd be dead,

627
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:02,920
they focused on the people
who'd survive.

628
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:04,800
So, the interesting thing
about these posters

629
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,880
is that the pace of technology
was constantly changing,

630
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,080
and in order to update them,
the Government had to

631
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:13,080
keep issuing stickers
to put over the bomb powers

632
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:15,240
as bigger and bigger bombs
were tested.

633
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:16,920
So these posters are not accurate?

634
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:19,160
They would have been accurate
for 1958,

635
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:20,880
not much longer than that.
OK, all right.

636
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,360
So, this would have been
a control centre,

637
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,760
the nerve centre of the operation.

638
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,960
It's almost as if the people
who were once here have

639
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,440
just left it in that state.

640
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:42,040
At its peak, the Civil Defence
Corps had over 4,000 branches

641
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,200
and half a million volunteers.

642
00:35:44,240 --> 00:35:48,880
They were ordinary people willing
to play their part at a time

643
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:52,840
when the Second World War was
still fresh in the public memory.

644
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:56,320
How many of these different
organisations were there?

645
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,080
There were four or five
different organisations.

646
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,160
There was the Civil Defence Corps,
there was the Royal Observer Corps.

647
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:05,240
There was
the Auxiliary Fire Service,

648
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,200
the Women's Voluntary Service.

649
00:36:07,240 --> 00:36:09,000
So, all of these
different organisations,

650
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:12,160
they were all there to pick up
the pieces after a nuclear attack.

651
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:13,520
What about the people at home?

652
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:16,400
What were they meant to do,
just wait to be rescued?

653
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:21,720
Well, the Government issued various
pamphlets, leaflets, guides, films

654
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:23,840
that would advise them on
what to do.

655
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:27,320
If the present world situation
does lead to a nuclear attack

656
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,480
on this country, it is vital that
you shall have taken

657
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:35,400
the necessary measures to safeguard
your home as much as possible.

658
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:39,240
The guides would offer - or try
to offer - practical advice.

659
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:43,560
The earlier ones told you to build
a refuge in your house

660
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:45,880
and then stay there for 14 days.

661
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,160
And the 14 days thing is the key,
because that's how long it takes

662
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:51,560
the fallout to stop being
as dangerous

663
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:53,640
as it is in those initial two weeks.

664
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:56,440
The question is, how practical
were these things?

665
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:59,520
There were a couple of experiments
called the York Experiments.

666
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:03,240
In the first one, three ladies
from the Civil Defence Corps,

667
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:06,680
in fact, put themselves into this...
it was an ordinary living room.

668
00:37:06,720 --> 00:37:09,240
They put sandbags in the windows,
locked the door,

669
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:11,760
and tried to sit it out
for two days.

670
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:14,880
And by the end of the two days,
they'd started hallucinating.

671
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:19,480
They'd suffered boredom, like, on
a scale that nobody had experienced.

672
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:22,840
And it showed up that some of these
things really weren't practical.

673
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:26,560
To illustrate this, Taras
is showing me what citizens

674
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:29,760
were recommended to wear
after a nuclear attack.

675
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,120
ARCHIVE: As soon as the heat
and blast waves have passed,

676
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:36,840
one of you should leave your fallout
room and find out the extent

677
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:38,840
to which the house has been damaged.

678
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,680
You should now put on gumboots,
or stout shoes,

679
00:37:41,720 --> 00:37:44,440
a coat done up to the neck,
a hat or head scarf,

680
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,800
and some gloves.
ONYEKA LAUGHS

681
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:49,120
Oh, dear...!

682
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:54,720
So, OK, in this attire - with this
hat and this coat and this...

683
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:56,200
This a pump? Yeah.

684
00:37:56,240 --> 00:37:58,640
Right. ..I am meant to put out
fires? That's right.

685
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,320
Uh... No.

686
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:06,880
As nuclear weapons developed,
these early civil defence plans

687
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:11,200
became impractical, outdated
and obsolete.

688
00:38:11,240 --> 00:38:14,960
In 1968, the Civil Defence Corps
was disbanded.

689
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:20,120
These early defence plans may seem
ridiculous, and even comical,

690
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:21,840
but the sobering truth is

691
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:25,000
that the dangers of nuclear war
have not gone away.

692
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,280
Perhaps we have merely
learned to live with them.

693
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:39,280
In late 1957, an event happened
that would take the Cold War

694
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:42,520
in a chilling new direction.

695
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:46,040
And it would also demonstrate
that even if the Americans

696
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:50,760
didn't entirely trust us,
they still needed us.

697
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,640
ARCHIVE: Headlines around the world
echoed the news -

698
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,280
Russia had blasted a man-made
moon into outer space.

699
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,920
The Soviets had scored
a scientific first.

700
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:05,840
When the Soviet Union launched the
world's first satellite, Sputnik,

701
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,840
it sent shock waves
around the globe.

702
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,520
American high command knew it
was just a matter of time

703
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:16,120
before long-range Soviet rockets
would be capable of carrying

704
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,520
more than just satellites.

705
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:23,200
Whilst the US did possess
the Thor rocket,

706
00:39:23,240 --> 00:39:26,320
capable of carrying a
nuclear warhead,

707
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,640
it had a range of just 1,500 miles,

708
00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:33,000
not enough to hit the Soviet Union
from America -

709
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:37,640
but it was enough if it was
launched from, say, the UK.

710
00:39:40,720 --> 00:39:44,160
Onyeka is in Northamptonshire,
where he's arranged to meet

711
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:47,960
Cold War historian Dr Emmett
Sullivan to discover more about

712
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:50,720
a seminal moment in British
Cold War history,

713
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:53,240
known as Project Emily.

714
00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:01,360
So, Emmett, you've brought me to
this rather ordinary-looking field

715
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,960
in Northamptonshire. Why?

716
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,360
Nothing in history is ordinary.

717
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:11,200
It might look like
an agricultural venue now.

718
00:40:11,240 --> 00:40:14,480
This was the site of RAF Harrington.

719
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:21,640
RAF Harrington was one of
20 sites across the UK

720
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:24,440
on which the British government
had agreed to house

721
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:26,280
American Thor missiles.

722
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,720
Their arrival was a clear signal
of a shift

723
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:33,000
in the Anglo-American relationship.

724
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:37,560
The strategic importance

725
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,520
of Britain's expensive nuclear
deterrent was reduced.

726
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:46,040
From now on, Britain would
increasingly rely on the USA

727
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:47,880
for its protection.

728
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:57,880
So, from this position, Onyeka,
this is the launch site

729
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:01,760
for the Thor intermediate-range
ballistic missiles.

730
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:07,280
And Britain had 60 of them
between 1959 and 1963.

731
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:12,920
Each missile had a warhead
100 times in size

732
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:16,000
of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

733
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:22,680
The concrete infrastructure built to
contain the blast when the rockets

734
00:41:22,720 --> 00:41:25,920
were launched is the only
existing reminder.

735
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:30,640
This is now the industrial
archaeology of, frankly, one of

736
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:35,000
the most dangerous sites that's
ever existed in British history.

737
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:38,720
Dangerous because of its
destructive potential.

738
00:41:39,720 --> 00:41:43,040
So, these are missiles
stationed in Britain,

739
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:45,920
but controlled by America?

740
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:48,760
Operated by the RAF...

741
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:52,480
And, ultimately, the RAF
could fire the missiles.

742
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:56,400
But unless they are armed,
the warhead is going to go clunk

743
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:58,960
about 1,500 miles away.

744
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,120
So, in other words,
if the Americans don't agree,

745
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:06,200
then the missiles don't get armed?
In principle, that is correct.

746
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:13,080
In the autumn of 1962, RAF
Harrington and its new Thor missiles

747
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:16,200
were at the heart of one of
the most terrifying episodes

748
00:42:16,240 --> 00:42:20,000
in the Cold War -
the Cuban Missile Crisis.

749
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:24,840
For 13 tense days, the world
teetered on the brink

750
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:26,880
of nuclear Armageddon.

751
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:30,720
The Soviet Union had threatened
to deploy ballistic missiles

752
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:32,880
on the Caribbean island of Cuba,

753
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:36,000
just 90 miles from the
American mainland.

754
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:41,720
I have directed the Armed Forces
to prepare for any eventualities.

755
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:46,200
If the Russian ships carrying
those missiles did not turn around,

756
00:42:46,240 --> 00:42:49,200
war seemed inevitable.

757
00:42:49,240 --> 00:42:51,960
The world held its breath.

758
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:56,520
No-one can foresee precisely
what course it will take,

759
00:42:56,560 --> 00:43:00,000
or what costs or casualties
will be incurred.

760
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:04,640
The nuclear arsenals on both sides
were primed for action,

761
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:06,960
including those at Harrington.

762
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:11,840
And all the way through the period
of the Cuban Missile Crisis,

763
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,960
every Thor missile - bar one
that was used for training -

764
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:17,600
was on T-15.

765
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,760
It had to be ready for launch
within 15 minutes.

766
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:25,120
The flight times of these missiles
from Britain to Moscow

767
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:27,640
was 12 to 13 minutes.

768
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:32,200
So, during the Cuban Missile Crisis,
this place was a target?

769
00:43:32,240 --> 00:43:35,560
This place was always a target.

770
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:40,560
In fact, we would see Britain as one
of the most target-rich environments

771
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,880
during the Cold War. Most of
the missiles that the Soviets had

772
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:50,200
would reach London and Edinburgh.
We would have been a cinder.

773
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:56,120
On October 28, and after intense
negotiations behind the scenes,

774
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:59,360
international diplomacy worked.

775
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,720
The Soviet Union agreed
to withdraw their missiles,

776
00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:06,080
and the world sighed in relief.

777
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:16,640
I think you look at that crisis,
and it is utterly terrifying.

778
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:18,960
It did come very, very close.

779
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,000
That really is the essence
of brinkmanship.

780
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,920
You don't really know whether you're
going to make things worse

781
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:27,720
or make things better. Yeah.
I mean, it's a huge gamble.

782
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:30,640
In fact, this communication with
the Prime Minister in Britain

783
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,360
at the time, Macmillan,
demonstrates that quite well.

784
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:36,360
So, this was a telephone
conversation between Macmillan

785
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:38,960
and Kennedy on the day that he
announced the naval blockade.

786
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:42,000
There's several really interesting
passages, but this one stands out,

787
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:44,880
where Kennedy says,
"But what we're attempting to do

788
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:47,840
"is to begin this escalation in
a way that lessens the chance

789
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,760
"of a seizure of Berlin
or World War III."

790
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:55,120
So, Berlin was the epicentre
of Cold War flash points.

791
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:59,360
He then goes on to say, "Now we may
not be able to prevent either."

792
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:00,920
ALICE GASPS
So, basically saying,

793
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:04,280
"I don't actually know if this
is going to work." Mm.

794
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:08,280
But this seems to be the only way
to, essentially, put Khrushchev

795
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,680
in his place and show him
that we mean business.

796
00:45:11,720 --> 00:45:13,120
I mean, that is chilling, isn't it?

797
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:17,200
Because he's saying that
he's escalating to de-escalate,

798
00:45:17,240 --> 00:45:20,800
and he's also,
in the next breath, saying,

799
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:23,400
I really don't know if this is going
to work. Exactly.

800
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:29,080
Amid stakes which couldn't
have been higher,

801
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:32,760
Britain's Cold War journey to this
point had been a troubled one.

802
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:36,960
But it had secured a place
at the nuclear table,

803
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:39,400
regained American trust,

804
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:43,000
and with it, access to
American nuclear weapons.

805
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,920
From this point on,
Britain's nuclear deterrent

806
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,240
and, therefore,
its national defences

807
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:53,800
would be intrinsically linked
with that of her superpower ally -

808
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:57,840
and at a time when the arms race
was about to go into overdrive.

809
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:02,200
It's a sobering thought
that just six years after

810
00:46:02,240 --> 00:46:06,160
the Cuban Missile Crisis, the number
of nuclear weapons on the planet

811
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:08,800
had grown to 40,000.

812
00:46:13,240 --> 00:46:17,960
It's easy to view the 1950s and
'60s with a certain detached

813
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:22,240
academic fascination,
but if history teaches us anything,

814
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,880
it's that we ignore the past
at our peril.

815
00:46:40,240 --> 00:46:45,720
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