V Bomber
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The "V bombers" were the
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
(RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Main Force. The three models of
strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, ...
, known collectively as the ''V class'', were the Vickers Valiant, which first flew in 1951 and entered service in 1955; the
Avro Vulcan The Avro Vulcan (later Hawker Siddeley Vulcan from July 1963) is a jet-powered, tailless, delta-wing, high-altitude, strategic bomber, which was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) from 1956 until 1984. Aircraft manufacturer A.V. Roe an ...
, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1956; and the
Handley Page Victor The Handley Page Victor is a British jet-powered strategic bomber developed and produced by Handley Page during the Cold War. It was the third and final '' V bomber'' to be operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF), the other two being the Avro ...
, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1957. The V Bomber force reached its peak in June 1964 with 50 Valiants, 70 Vulcans and 39 Victors in service. When it became clear that the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
's
surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...
s like the
S-75 Dvina The S-75 (Russian: С-75; NATO reporting name SA-2 Guideline) is a Soviet-designed, high-altitude air defence system, built around a surface-to-air missile with command guidance. Following its first deployment in 1957 it became one of the most w ...
could bring down high-flying aircraft, the V bomber force changed to low-level attack methods. Additionally the Blue Steel missile profile was changed to one of low level penetration and release. This reduced its range significantly. It was then planned to move to the much longer-ranged
Skybolt The Douglas GAM-87 Skybolt (AGM-48 under the 1962 Tri-service system) was an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) developed by the United States during the late 1950s. The basic concept was to allow US strategic bombers to launch their weapon ...
air-launched ballistic missile An air-launched ballistic missile or ALBM is a ballistic missile launched from an aircraft. An ALBM allows the launch aircraft to stand off at long distances from its target, keeping it well outside the range of defensive weapons like anti-aircr ...
. When the US cancelled Skybolt, the survivability of the V force was highly questionable. This led to the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
taking over the
nuclear deterrent Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons. As a sub-branch of military strategy, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means to political ends. In addit ...
role from 1968, using
UGM-27 Polaris The UGM-27 Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fueled nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). As the United States Navy's first SLBM, it served from 1961 to 1980. In the mid-1950s the Navy was involved in the Jupiter missi ...
submarine launched ballistic missiles launched from
nuclear submarine A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor, but not necessarily nuclear-armed. Nuclear submarines have considerable performance advantages over "conventional" (typically diesel-electric) submarines. Nuclear propulsion, ...
s. The tactical role passed to smaller aircraft like the
SEPECAT Jaguar The SEPECAT Jaguar is an Anglo-French jet attack aircraft originally used by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in the close air support and nuclear strike role. It is still in service with the Indian Air Force. Originall ...
and
Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multirole combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and West Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS (inter ...
. The V bombers were also capable of dropping conventional weapons, supported by a complex
analogue computer An analog computer or analogue computer is a type of computer that uses the continuous variation aspect of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities (''analog signals'') to model the problem being solved. In ...
system known as the Navigation and Bombing System that allowed accurate bombing even over very long ranges. The Valiants were used during the
Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
as conventional bombers. Victors and Vulcans were deployed to the Malay Archipelago as a deterrent during the
Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation The Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation or Borneo confrontation (also known by its Indonesian / Malay name, ''Konfrontasi'') was an armed conflict from 1963 to 1966 that stemmed from Indonesia's opposition to the creation of the Federation of ...
but were not used in missions. The Vulcan is well-remembered for its conventional Black Buck bombing raids during the 1982
Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
. To support such missions,
tanker aircraft This is a list of tanker aircraft used for aerial refuelling of another aircraft whilst in powered flight. Refueling methods ;Looped hose: The first commercial method employed a hose which was held slack in a trailing half-loop behind both air ...
versions of all three designs were developed. Reconnaissance versions were produced, and other modifications were also made during their lifetime. The Valiants were removed from service in 1964 after problems with
metal fatigue In materials science, fatigue is the initiation and propagation of cracks in a material due to cyclic loading. Once a fatigue crack has initiated, it grows a small amount with each loading cycle, typically producing striations on some parts o ...
of their wings became apparent; a planned low-level variant did not progress beyond the prototype. Usage of all V bombers as weapons platforms, nuclear or conventional, ended in 1982.


Background

The
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
(RAF)
Bomber Command Bomber Command is an organisational military unit, generally subordinate to the air force of a country. The best known were in Britain and the United States. A Bomber Command is generally used for strategic bombing (although at times, e.g. during t ...
ended the Second World War with a policy of using heavy four-
piston-engine A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common featu ...
d bombers for massed raids, and remained committed to this policy in the immediate post-war period. The RAF adopted the Avro Lincoln, an updated version of the wartime Avro Lancaster, as its standard bomber for this purpose. Production of the Lincoln continued after the war, and eventually 450 were built. Although touted as a mighty bomber in 1945, it lacked the range to reach targets in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, and would be vulnerable to the new jet fighters that were then under development. Elements within the RAF and the government sought to adopt the new
nuclear weaponry A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
and advances in aviation technology to introduce more potent and effective means of conducting warfare. In November 1944, the UK Chiefs of Staff had requested a report from Sir
Henry Tizard Sir Henry Thomas Tizard (23 August 1885 – 9 October 1959) was an English chemist, inventor and Rector of Imperial College, who developed the modern "octane rating" used to classify petrol, helped develop radar in World War II, and led the fir ...
on potential future means of warfare. Reporting without knowledge of the progress of Allied efforts to produce an atomic bomb, in July 1945 the
Tizard Committee The Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence (CSSAD), also known as the Tizard Committee after its chairman, Henry Tizard, was a pre-World War II scientific mission to study the needs of anti-aircraft warfare in the United Kingdom. The ...
urged the encouragement of large-scale atomic energy research. It foresaw the devastating effects of atomic weapons and envisaged high-flying jet bombers cruising at at . It was thought that potential aggressors might be deterred by the knowledge that Britain would retaliate with atomic weapons if attacked. Even at the time, there were those who could see that guided
missile In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocke ...
s would eventually make such aircraft vulnerable, but development of such missiles was proving difficult, and fast and high-flying jet bombers were likely to serve for years before there was a need for something better. Massed bombers were unnecessary if a single bomber could destroy an entire city or military installation with a nuclear weapon. It would have to be a large bomber, since the first generation of nuclear weapons were big and heavy. Such a large and advanced bomber would be expensive on a per-unit basis, as it would be produced in small quantities. During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed
Tube Alloys Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Starting before the Manhattan Project in the United States, the ...
, which the 1943 Quebec Agreement merged with the American
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
. The British government trusted that the United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as a joint discovery, after the war, but the
United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) determined how the United States would control and manage the nuclear technology it had jointly developed with its World War II allies, the United Kingdom and Canada. Most significantly, the Act ruled ...
(McMahon Act) ended technical co-operation. The British government saw this as a resurgence of
United States isolationism United States non-interventionism primarily refers to the foreign policy that was eventually applied by the United States between the late 18th century and the first half of the 20th century whereby it sought to avoid alliances with other nations ...
, as had occurred after the First World War, and dreaded the possibility that Britain might have to fight an aggressor alone. It also feared that Britain might lose its
great power A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power inf ...
status and its influence in world affairs. It therefore restarted its own nuclear weapons development effort, which was now codenamed
High Explosive Research High Explosive Research (HER) was the British project to develop atomic bombs independently after the Second World War. This decision was taken by a cabinet sub-committee on 8 January 1947, in response to apprehension of an American retur ...
. The first British atomic bomb was tested in
Operation Hurricane Operation Hurricane was the first test of a British atomic device. A plutonium implosion device was detonated on 3 October 1952 in Main Bay, Trimouille Island, in the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. With the success of Operation H ...
on 3 October 1952.


Development

In November 1946, the
Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
issued an
operational requirement An Operational Requirement, commonly abbreviated OR, was a United Kingdom (UK) Air Ministry document setting out the required characteristics for a future (i.e., as-yet unbuilt) military aircraft or weapon system. The numbered OR would describe ...
(OR230) for an advanced jet bomber capable of carrying a bomb to a target from a base anywhere in the world with a cruising speed of and at an altitude of between . The bomb weight arose from an earlier operational requirement for an atomic bomb (OR1001), which specified a maximum weight of . The speed and altitude requirements were based on what was thought necessary to penetrate enemy air defences. The aircraft itself was to weigh no more than . The Ministry of Supply baulked, and initially refused to accept OR230. Calculations showed that such an aircraft would require a runway long. Bomber Command's runways were built to handle the Lancaster, and extending them would be an expensive undertaking, involving not only additional construction, but land acquisition and demolition works. OR230 would never be fulfilled, and was ultimately cancelled on 17 September 1952. The Operational Requirements Committee met to discuss OR230 on 17 December 1946. This committee was chaired by the Vice-Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir William Dickson, with Stuart Scott-Hall, the Principal Director of Technical Development (Air) representing the Ministry of Supply. The result was a new Operational Requirement (OR229) on 7 January 1947. This was much the same as OR230, but the range was cut to , and the weight reduced to . OR229 formed the basis of an
Air Ministry specification This is a partial list of the British Air Ministry (AM) specifications for aircraft. A specification stemmed from an Operational Requirement, abbreviated "OR", describing what the aircraft would be used for. This in turn led to the specification ...
, B.35/46. A request for designs went to most of the United Kingdom's major aircraft manufacturers: Handley Page,
Armstrong Whitworth Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. With headquarters in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth built armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles and ...
, Avro,
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
,
Short Brothers Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London, and was the first company in the world to make production aeroplanes. It was particu ...
and English Electric. On 30 April 1947, Armstrong Whitworth, Avro, English Electric and Handley Page were invited to submit formal design tenders. A tender design conference was held on 28 July 1947, and decided to order the design submitted by Avro, along with a small flying model to test its delta wing design. The conference also decided to investigate the
crescent wing The crescent wing is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration in which a swept wing has a greater sweep angle on the inboard section than the outboard, giving the wing a crescent shape. The planform attempts to reduce several unpleasant side-effects o ...
concept as insurance against the favoured delta wing design being a failure. The Handley Page and Armstrong Whitworth designs were both considered. The Ministry of Supply gave financial cover in the form of an Intention to Proceed (ITP) order to Avro in November 1947. An advisory committee selected the Handley Page design on 23 December 1947, and it too was given an ITP. The 17 December 1946 meeting that came up with OR230 also decided to solicit bids for a more conservative design that could be put into service more quickly, and could act as further insurance against the failure of both of the more advanced designs. This was expressed in another operational requirement (OR239), from which an Air Ministry specification, B.14/46, was generated, which was issued on 11 August 1947. This had lower cruising altitude and speed requirements than B.35/46, but was otherwise identical. A design was put forward by Shorts, which was given an ITP in November 1947. The result was an extremely conservative design with straight wings, the Short Sperrin, which was in practice little more than a jet-powered Lincoln. Meanwhile, Vickers-Armstrong had produced a swept wing design, the Vickers 660. This had been rejected because it did not meet the B.35/46 specification; but the estimated performance of the Sperrin caused officials at the Air Ministry to take another look. A new specification, B.9/48, was drawn up, based on the Vickers-Armstrong design, which was issued on 19 July 1948. An ITP was given to Vickers-Armstrong in April 1948, followed by a contract for two prototypes in February 1949, whereas Shorts was only awarded a contract for two prototypes in February 1949. The first prototype Vickers 660 flew on 18 May 1951, three months before the first prototype Sperrin, which first flew on 10 August 1951. No longer required, the Sperrin was cancelled; only the two prototypes were built. Vickers-Armstrong named its aircraft the Vickers Valiant. Hitherto, bombers had been named after British or Commonwealth cities, but in October 1952 the Air Ministry decided to adopt alliterate names, with the other designs becoming the
Avro Vulcan The Avro Vulcan (later Hawker Siddeley Vulcan from July 1963) is a jet-powered, tailless, delta-wing, high-altitude, strategic bomber, which was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) from 1956 until 1984. Aircraft manufacturer A.V. Roe an ...
and the
Handley-Page Victor The Handley Page Victor is a British jet-powered strategic bomber developed and produced by Handley Page during the Cold War. It was the third and final ''V bomber'' to be operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF), the other two being the Avro Vul ...
. Henceforth, the three would be known as the V bombers. While more expensive than the approach of building one bomber design per category, the RAF insisted on having choice. Air Chief Marshal Sir
John Slessor Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Cotesworth Slessor, (3 June 1897 – 12 July 1979) was a senior commander in the Royal Air Force (RAF), serving as Chief of the Air Staff from 1950 to 1952. As a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps du ...
believed that had the air force been forced to choose among the three British bombers under development in the late 1930s—the Avro Manchester, Short Stirling, and
Handley Page Halifax The Handley Page Halifax is a British Royal Air Force (RAF) four-engined heavy bomber of the Second World War. It was developed by Handley Page to the same specification as the contemporary twin-engine Avro Manchester. The Halifax has its or ...
—it would have chosen the wrong one. As a stop gap, the British announced on 27 January 1950 that it had agreed to acquire Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers from the United States free under the recently passed American
Mutual Defense Assistance Act The Mutual Defense Assistance Act was a United States Act of Congress signed by President Harry S. Truman on 6 October 1949. For US Foreign policy, it was the first U.S. military foreign aid legislation of the Cold War era, and initially to Eur ...
. This allowed the Air Ministry to drop the development of the Sperrin. The B-29 served in the RAF under the name of the Washington B1. The RAF received its first Washington on 22 March 1950, and the eighty-seventh was delivered in June 1952. Like the Lincoln, it was a piston-engine aircraft, and while it did have the range to reach the Soviet Union from British bases, it was not nuclear-capable. The RAF planned to use them against Soviet bomber bases. The Washingtons suffered from maintenance problems due to a lack of spare parts, and most were returned to the US between July 1953 and July 1954; four remained in service until 1958. Their role was assumed by the new jet-propelled
English Electric Canberra The English Electric Canberra is a British first-generation, jet-powered medium bomber. It was developed by English Electric during the mid- to late 1940s in response to a 1944 Air Ministry requirement for a successor to the wartime de Havil ...
bomber.


In service


First generation

When the first Blue Danube atomic bombs were delivered to the Bomber Command Armaments School at
RAF Wittering Royal Air Force Wittering or more simply RAF Wittering is a Royal Air Force station within the unitary authority area of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and the unitary authority area of North Northamptonshire. Although Stamford in Lincolnshire i ...
on 7 and 11 November 1953, the RAF had no bombers capable of carrying them. Sir
William Penney William George Penney, Baron Penney, (24 June 19093 March 1991) was an English mathematician and professor of mathematical physics at the Imperial College London and later the rector of Imperial College London. He had a leading role in the d ...
noted that "the RAF has handled aircraft for a long time and can fly Valiants as soon as they come off the production line. But the Royal Air Force has not yet handled atomic weapons, therefore, we must get some bombs to the RAF at the earliest possible moment, so that the handling and servicing can be practised and fully worked out." The Canberra and Valiant were accorded "super priority" status on 13 March 1952, and in December the Vulcan and Victor also received it. The Valiant went into production as the first V bomber in 1955. The Valiant entered service in February 1955, the Vulcan in May 1956 and the Victor in November 1957. No. 232 Operational Conversion Unit was formed at
RAF Gaydon Royal Air Force Gaydon or more simply RAF Gaydon is a former Royal Air Force station located east of Wellesbourne, Warwickshire and north west of Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. RAF Gaydon opened in 1942 and is known for its role during the ...
in June 1955 and aircrew training commenced. The first Valiant squadron, No. 138 Squadron, formed at RAF Gaydon in January 1955, followed by No. 543 Squadron, which was formed at RAF Gaydon on 1 June 1955 before moving to
RAF Wyton Royal Air Force Wyton or more simply RAF Wyton is a Royal Air Force station near St Ives, Cambridgeshire, England. The airfield is decommissioned and is now home to the Joint Forces Intelligence Group. History Flying station Wyton has b ...
. Two more Valiant bases were established at
RAF Marham RAF Marham is a Royal Air Force station and military airbase near the village of Marham in the English county of Norfolk, East Anglia. It is home to No. 138 Expeditionary Air Wing (138 EAW) and, as such, is one of the RAF's "Main Operating ...
and
RAF Honington Royal Air Force Honington or more simply RAF Honington is a Royal Air Force station located south of Thetford near Ixworth in Suffolk, England. Although used as a bomber station during the Second World War, RAF Honington is now the RAF Regim ...
in 1956, and six more squadrons were formed in quick succession: No. 214 Squadron at RAF Marham in March, No. 207 Squadron at RAF Marham and No. 49 Squadron at RAF Wittering in May, No. 148 Squadron at RAF Marham in July, No. 7 Squadron at RAF Honington in November and finally No. 90 Squadron at RAF Honington in January 1957. Vulcan XA895 was allocated to No. 230 Operational Conversion Unit at
RAF Waddington Royal Air Force Waddington otherwise known as RAF Waddington is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station located beside the village of Waddington, south of Lincoln, Lincolnshire in England. The station is the RAF's Intelligence Surveillance Target ...
in January 1957, and Vulcan aircrew training commenced. The first Vulcan squadron, No. 83 Squadron, was formed at RAF Waddington in May 1957. It initially used aircraft borrowed from No. 230 Operational Conversion Unit until it received its first Vulcan, XA905, on 11 July 1957. It was followed by No. 101 Squadron, which was formed at
RAF Finningley Royal Air Force Finningley or RAF Finningley was a Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force station at Finningley, in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The station straddled the historic county boundaries of both ...
on 15 October 1957. A third Vulcan squadron, No. 617 Squadron, was formed on 1 May 1958 at
RAF Scampton Royal Air Force Scampton or RAF Scampton is a Royal Air Force station located adjacent to the A15 road near to the village of Scampton, Lincolnshire, and north-west of the city of Lincoln, England. RAF Scampton stands on the site of a Firs ...
, the same base from which it carried out the
Dambuster Raids Operation Chastise or commonly known as the Dambusters Raid was an attack on German dams carried out on the night of 16/17 May 1943 by 617 Squadron RAF Bomber Command, later called the Dam Busters, using special "bouncing bombs" developed by ...
in May 1943. No. 232 Operational Conversion Unit took delivery of its first Victor on 29 November 1957. The first operational Victor squadron was No. 10 Squadron RAF, which received its first Victor on 9 April 1958 and was formed on 15 April. This was followed by No. 15 Squadron, which was formed on 1 September 1958, and No. 57 Squadron, which was formed on 1 January 1959. The UK nuclear strike force became known officially as the V force or Main Force. V force assets at the end of 1958 were:


Second generation

The development of effective jet fighters and anti-aircraft missile defences promised to make the
nuclear deterrent Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons. As a sub-branch of military strategy, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means to political ends. In addit ...
delivered from bombers flying at high altitudes increasingly ineffective. While making the V bombers fast enough to avoid them was problematic, improved engines offered the possibility of allowing them to fly higher. Since the
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-19; NATO reporting name: Farmer) is a Soviet second generation, single-seat, twinjet fighter aircraft, the world's first mass-produced supersonic aircraft. It was the ...
fighters coming into service in the Soviet Union had a ceiling of , a V bomber could avoid them by flying at over . Two dozen of a new model of the Vulcan, the B.2, with Bristol Olympus 201 engines, a slightly larger wingspan and new electrical and electronic systems were ordered on 25 February 1956. The last 17 aircraft outstanding from the September 1954 order and 8 from the March 1955 order were switched to the B.2, making a total of 49 on order. Another 40 were ordered on 22 January 1958. A pre-production model, XH533, first flew on 19 August 1958, and in a trial on 4 Match 1959 it reached . The wings and new engines also increased the range by . The second production B.2,
XH558 Avro Vulcan XH558 ( military serial ''XH558'', civil aircraft registration ''G-VLCN'') ''Spirit of Great Britain'' was the last remaining airworthy example of the 134 Avro Vulcan jet-powered delta winged strategic nuclear bomber aircraft opera ...
, was delivered to No. 230 Operational Conversion Unit on 1 July 1960. As Vulcan B.2s were received, the B.1s were withdrawn from service and upgraded to B.1A standard through the installation of more electronics. Most of this work was carried out by Armstrong Whitworth. Modifications were made to the Victor B.1 in 1959. These included the addition of an in-flight refuelling probe, new
electronic countermeasures An electronic countermeasure (ECM) is an electrical or electronic device designed to trick or deceive radar, sonar, or other detection systems, like infrared (IR) or lasers. It may be used both offensively and defensively to deny targeting info ...
(ECM) equipment, tail-warning radar, drooped leading edges and a strengthened pressure cabin. This modified version was known as the Victor B.1A. An improved version of the Victor was also programmed with the
Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire The Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire is a British turbojet engine that was produced by Armstrong Siddeley in the 1950s. It was the ultimate development of work that had started as the Metrovick F.2 in 1940, evolving into an advanced axial flow de ...
9 engine, an improved version of the Sapphire 7 in the Victor B.1. However, development of the Sapphire 9 was cancelled by the Ministry of Supply in February 1956, and a minor improvement to the Sapphire 7 in March 1956 increased its thrust to , so it was decided to ship 25 of the next production batch of 33 Victors ordered in May 1955 with the Sapphire 7. The remaining eight, along with 18 more Victors ordered in January 1956, were built as Victor B.2s, with the
Rolls-Royce Conway The Rolls-Royce RB.80 Conway was the first turbofan engine to enter service. Development started at Rolls-Royce in the 1940s, but the design was used only briefly, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, before other turbofan designs replaced it. ...
RCo.11 engines providing . The new Conway engines required redesigned enlarged intakes to provide the greater airflow required, and the wingspan was extended from . As in the Vulcan, the DC electrical system was replaced with an AC one. The prototype Victor B.2, XH668, first flew on 20 February 1959, but was lost over the Irish Sea on 20 August. The first production B.2, XL188, was delivered on 2 November 1961, and No. 139 Squadron became the first Victor B.2 squadron on 1 February 1962. V force assets at the end of 1962 were: The V Bomber force reached its peak in June 1964, when 50 Valiants, 70 Vulcans and 39 Victors were in service. In retrospect, the decision to proceed with three V bombers was questionable. As it turned out, all the roles could have been performed by the Valiant, and its B.2 model was specifically designed for the low-level operations that the V bombers would employ in their later years. Moreover, the rationale for producing both the Vulcan and the Victor disappeared early on. That for producing the Victor B.2 instead of concentrating on the Vulcan B.2 was especially dubious, and Air Chief Marshal Sir
Harry Broadhurst :''See also Henry Broadhurst for the trade unionist and politician'' Air Chief Marshal Sir Harry Broadhurst, (28 October 1905 – 29 August 1995), commonly known as Broady, was a senior Royal Air Force commander and flying ace of the Second Wo ...
attributed it to lobbying by Sir
Frederick Handley Page Sir Frederick Handley Page, CBE, FRAeS (15 November 1885 – 21 April 1962) was an English industrialist who was a pioneer in the aircraft industry and became known as the father of the heavy bomber. His company Handley Page Limited was ...
, a desire to retain jobs in the aviation industry, and because the government wanted the Rolls-Royce Conway engine produced for the
Vickers VC10 The Vickers VC10 is a mid-sized, narrow-body long-range British jet airliner designed and built by Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd and first flown at Brooklands, Surrey, in 1962. The airliner was designed to operate on long-distance route ...
airliner.


Nuclear mission

The British government was well aware of the devastation that a nuclear war would bring. A 1953 report estimated that an attack on the UK with 132 fission weapons would generate 2 million casualties. A follow-on study, which considered the possible effect of hydrogen bombs, estimated that as few as ten could reduce the entire UK to a radioactive ruin. Given that defence was impractical, the UK turned to a policy of
deterrence Deterrence may refer to: * Deterrence theory, a theory of war, especially regarding nuclear weapons * Deterrence (penology), a theory of justice * Deterrence (psychology) Deterrence in relation to criminal offending is the idea or theory that t ...
, by targeting the population and administrative centres of the Soviet Union. In 1957, the Air Ministry drew up a list of 131 Soviet cities with populations of 100,000 or more. Of these, 98 were within of the UK. Of these, 44 were selected. It was estimated that their destruction would kill about thirty percent of the urban population of the Soviet Union, about 38 million people. It was almost inconceivable that a war with the Soviet Union would not involve the United States, and as early as 1946, American defence planning envisaged using the UK as a base for nuclear strikes on the Soviet Union, as the United States Air Force (USAF) had not yet developed long-range bombers that could attack key targets in the Soviet Union from bases in the United States. But the United States strategy was that attacks on population centres would have little value once a war had actually begun, and prioritised military targets, particularly those from which nuclear weapons could be launched or deployed. Coordination of war plans between RAF Bomber Command and the USAF
Strategic Air Command Strategic Air Command (SAC) was both a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile ...
(SAC) was clearly desirable, and a joint war plan was negotiated between 1954 and 1958. The RAF's nuclear force was capable of destroying key targets before bomber aircraft from the United States had entered Soviet airspace, "taking into account Bomber Command’s ability to be on target in the first wave several hours in advance of the main SAC force operating from bases in the United States." Based on the assumption that RAF Bomber Command would have about 100 V bombers in operations by 1959, the SAC/RAF agreement assigned 106 targets to the UK: 69 cities, 17 long-range aviation bases, and 20 air-defence sites. Attacks on the air-defence installations would clear the way for waves of SAC bombers to follow. The plan was updated annually; as Soviet capabilities improved, more emphasis was placed on attacking airfields and missile bases.


Nuclear testing

. Special Valiant unit No. 1321 Flight was formed at RAF Wittering on 3 August 1954 which conducted ballistic test trials with Blue Danube practice bombs. It became C Flight of No. 138 Squadron in March 1956, and No. 49 Squadron on 1 May 1956. Valiants WZ366 and WZ367 were then flown to
Maralinga Maralinga, in the remote western areas of South Australia, was the site, measuring about in area, of British nuclear tests in the mid-1950s. In January 1985 native title was granted to the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Aborig ...
, South Australia for
Operation Buffalo Operation Buffalo may refer to: * Operation Buffalo, 1944 military operation, part of the Battle of Anzio in WW2 * Operation Buffalo (1956), four open-air nuclear tests at Maralinga, South Australia * Operation Buffalo (1967), a Vietnam War opera ...
. Valiant B.1 WZ366 of No. 49 Squadron became the first RAF aircraft to drop an operational atomic bomb when it performed a test drop of a down-rated 3-kt Blue Danube at Maralinga on 11 October 1956. The bomb landed about left and short of the target. The pilot was Squadron Leader Edwin Flavell, and the bomb aimer was Flight Lieutenant Eric Stacey, and both were awarded the Air Force Cross in the 1957 New Year Honours. On 15 May 1957, Valiant B.1 XD818 flown by
Wing Commander Wing commander (Wg Cdr in the RAF, the IAF, and the PAF, WGCDR in the RNZAF and RAAF, formerly sometimes W/C in all services) is a senior commissioned rank in the British Royal Air Force and air forces of many countries which have historical ...
Kenneth Hubbard Group Captain Kenneth Gilbert Hubbard (26 February 1920 – 21 January 2004) was the pilot of an RAF Vickers Valiant bomber which dropped Britain's first live thermonuclear weapon (H-Bomb) in Operation Grapple in the Central Pacific Ocean in M ...
dropped the first British hydrogen bomb over the Pacific, the "Short Granite", as part of
Operation Grapple Operation Grapple was a set of four series of British nuclear weapons tests of early atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs carried out in 1957 and 1958 at Malden Island and Kiritimati (Christmas Island) in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the P ...
. No. 49 Squadron was selected to perform the live weapon drop and was equipped with specially modified Valiants to conform with the scientific requirements of the tests and other precautionary measures to protect against heat and radiation. The test was largely a failure, as the measured yield was less than a third of the maximum expected and the device failed to achieve a
thermonuclear Thermonuclear fusion is the process of atomic nuclei combining or “fusing” using high temperatures to drive them close enough together for this to become possible. There are two forms of thermonuclear fusion: ''uncontrolled'', in which the re ...
explosion as intended. The first British hydrogen bomb that detonated as planned was Grapple X Round A, dropped on 8 November 1957. The Grapple series of tests continued into 1958, and the Grapple Y bomb exploded in April 1958 with ten times the yield of the original "Short Granite". Testing was finally terminated in November 1958 when the British government decided to cease atmospheric testing.


Project E

As V bomber production picked up, the number of bombers exceeded the number of available British nuclear weapons. Britain had only ten nuclear bombs in 1955, and just 14 in 1956. To make up the difference, American nuclear weapons were obtained through
Project E Project E was a joint project between the United States and the United Kingdom during the Cold War to provide nuclear weapons to the Royal Air Force (RAF) until sufficient British nuclear weapons became available. It was subsequently expanded ...
. Since they were in American custody, they were not available for the RAF to use as part of the UK's independent national nuclear deterrent; only British-owned weapons could be used for that purpose. The Vulcan and Victor were armed with British-built bombs Blue Danube,
Red Beard is a 1965 Japanese ''jidaigeki'' film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, in his last collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune. Based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's 1959 short story collection, '' Akahige Shinryōtan'', the film takes p ...
,
Violet Club Violet may refer to: Common meanings * Violet (color), a spectral color with wavelengths shorter than blue * One of a list of plants known as violet, particularly: ** ''Viola'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants Places United States * Vio ...
, and Yellow Sun of both the Mk 1 and Mk 2 versions. Project E modifications to Valiants commenced at RAE Farnborough in February 1956. Crew training was carried out with American instructors at
RAF Boscombe Down MoD Boscombe Down ' is the home of a military aircraft testing site, on the southeastern outskirts of the town of Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. The site is managed by QinetiQ, the private defence company created as part of the breakup of the Def ...
. The planned V bomber force was reduced to 144 aircraft, and it was planned to equip half of them with Project E weapons. The first 28 Valiants were modified by October 1957; the remaining 20 Valiants, along with 24 Vulcans, were ready by January 1959. Under the Project E Memorandum of Understanding, US personnel had custody of the weapons. That meant they performed all the tasks related to their storage, maintenance and readiness. While the bombs were at the same bases as the bombers, they were stored in Secure Storage Areas (SSAs) that British staff were not permitted to enter. It was therefore impossible to store British and American bombs together in the same SSA. Bomber Command designated RAF Marham, RAF Waddington and RAF Honington as bases with US SSAs. Another three sites had British SSAs. US custody created operational problems. The procedure for handing over the bombs added an extra ten minutes to the bombers' reaction time, and the requirement that US personnel had guardianship of the weapons at all times meant that neither they nor the bombers could be relocated to dispersal airfields as the RAF desired. Initially, 72
Mark 5 nuclear bomb The Mark 5 nuclear bomb and W5 nuclear warhead were a common core American nuclear weapon design, designed in the early 1950s and which saw service from 1952 to 1963. Description The Mark 5 design was the first production American nuclear weapon ...
s were supplied for the V bombers. They had a yield of up to . The successful British development of the hydrogen bomb, and a favourable international relations climate caused by the Sputnik crisis, led to the United States Atomic Energy Act being amended again in 1958, resulting in the long-sought resumption of the nuclear Special Relationship between Britain and the United States in the form of the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement. The United States now agreed to supply the V bombers with megaton weapons in place of the Mark 5, in the form of Mark 15 and
Mark 39 nuclear bomb The Mark 39 nuclear bomb and W39 nuclear warhead were versions of an American thermonuclear weapon, which were in service from 1957 to 1966. The Mark 39 design was a thermonuclear bomb (see Teller-Ulam design) and had a yield of 3.8 megatons. ...
s. The Treasury immediately inquired as to whether this meant that the British megaton bomb programme could be terminated. The answer was no; the operational restrictions imposed by Project E "effectively handed the US government a veto over the use of half of Britain's nuclear deterrent". With sufficient British bombs on hand, operational issues, and the concept of an independent nuclear deterrent came to the fore. The
Air Council Air Council (or Air Force Council) was the governing body of the Royal Air Force until the merger of the Air Ministry with the other armed forces ministries to form the Ministry of Defence in 1964. It was succeeded by the Air Force Board. Me ...
decided on 7 July 1960 that Project E weapons would be phased out by December 1962, by which time it was anticipated that there would be sufficient British megaton weapons to equip the entire
strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, ...
force. Project E weapons were replaced by British Yellow Sun bombs at RAF Honington on 1 July 1961 and Waddington on 30 March 1962. Problems encountered in the development of the Red Beard bomb meant that the replacement of kiloton weapons took longer. The UK-based Valiants at Honington and Wittering were withdrawn in April and October 1962, and the last Valiants were retired from the V bomber force in July 1965. The final practice loading at RAF Marham—with the Mark 43s—was in January 1965, and the last US personnel left the base in July.


Low level strike

The prospect of bombers being able to avoid the Soviet air defences dimmed with the appearance of the
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-21; NATO reporting name: Fishbed) is a supersonic jet aircraft, jet fighter aircraft, fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan, Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB, De ...
, which Nigel Birch, the Secretary of State for Air and senior RAF officers saw at Tushino Airfield on 24 June 1956. There was no immediate concern as Soviet designs often took several years to deploy; but its ceiling of posed a clear threat to the V bombers. So too did the new
SA-2 The S-75 (Russian: С-75; NATO reporting name SA-2 Guideline) is a Soviet-designed, high-altitude air defence system, built around a surface-to-air missile with command guidance. Following its first deployment in 1957 it became one of the most w ...
surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...
s, which appeared in 1957. One of them shot down an American
Lockheed U-2 The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-jet engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day ...
piloted by
Francis Gary Powers Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 in ...
over the Soviet Union on 1 May 1960. In 1957, the supersonic
Avro 730 The Avro 730 was a planned Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft and strategic bomber that was being developed by Avro Aircraft for the Royal Air Force (RAF). It had been originally envisioned as a very high-speed aircraft to perform aerial reconna ...
bomber was cancelled. This freed up funds for the
Blue Streak missile The de Havilland Propellers Blue Streak was a British Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), and later the first stage of the Europa satellite launch vehicle. Blue Streak was cancelled without entering full production. The project was ...
programme, but it too was cancelled, on 24 February 1960. To extend the effectiveness and operational life of the V bombers, an Operational Requirement (OR1132), was issued on 3 September 1954 for an air-launched, rocket-propelled
standoff missile Standoff weapons are missiles or bombs which may be launched from a distance sufficient to allow attacking personnel to evade the effect of the weapon or defensive fire from the target area. Typically, they are used against land- and sea-based targ ...
with a range of that could be launched from a V bomber. This became Blue Steel. The Ministry of Supply placed a development contract with Avro in March 1956, and it entered service in December 1962. By this time, it was anticipated that even with Blue Steel, the air defences of the Soviet Union would soon improve to the extent that V bombers might find it difficult to attack their targets, and there were calls for the development of the Blue Steel Mark II with a range of at least . Despite the name, this was a whole new missile, and not a development of the Mark I. The
Minister of Aviation The Ministry of Aviation was a department of the United Kingdom government established in 1959. Its responsibilities included the regulation of civil aviation and the supply of military aircraft, which it took on from the Ministry of Supply. ...
,
Duncan Sandys Edwin Duncan Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys (; 24 January 1908 – 26 November 1987), was a British politician and minister in successive Conservative governments in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a son-in-law of Winston Churchill and played a key r ...
, insisted that priority be accorded to getting the Mark I into service, and the Mark II was cancelled at the end of 1959. Considerable modification was required to enable the Victors to carry Blue Steel. These included structural changes to the bomb bay. New Conway RCo.17 engines were installed, along with a
combuster A combustor is a component or area of a gas turbine, ramjet, or scramjet engine where combustion takes place. It is also known as a burner, combustion chamber or flame holder. In a gas turbine engine, the ''combustor'' or combustion chamber is fed ...
ignition system to allow all four engines to be started simultaneously and reduce
scramble Scramble, Scrambled, or Scrambling may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * ''Scramble'' (video game), a 1981 arcade game Music Albums * ''Scramble'' (album), an album by Atlanta-based band the Coathangers * ''Scrambles'' (album) ...
time to minutes per aircraft. A total of 23 Victor B.2 aircraft were upgraded to the new standard, known as B.2R (for retrofit), and two more were built as such. The British government then turned to
Skybolt The Douglas GAM-87 Skybolt (AGM-48 under the 1962 Tri-service system) was an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) developed by the United States during the late 1950s. The basic concept was to allow US strategic bombers to launch their weapon ...
, an American missile that combined the range of Blue Streak with the mobile basing of the Blue Steel, and was small enough that two could be carried on the Vulcan bomber. Armed with a British
Red Snow Red Snow was a British thermonuclear weapon, based on the US W28 (then called Mark 28) design used in the B28 thermonuclear bomb and AGM-28 Hound Dog missile. The US W28 had yields of and while Red Snow yields are still classified, declassifie ...
warhead, this would improve the capability of the UK's V bomber force, and extend its useful life into the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...
Defence Committee approved the acquisition of Skybolt in February 1960. The Vulcan B.2s were modified to carry a pair of Skybolt missiles. They were fitted with Bristol Olympus 301 engines, strengthened wings and two special attachment points. A British warhead was designed to fit in Skybolt's nose cone, and dummy test firings were carried out at
RAF West Freugh RAF West Freugh is a former Royal Air Force station located in Wigtownshire, south east of Stranraer, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It has always been an armaments training school, either for handling or deployment of ordnance. The site is ...
commencing on 9 December 1961. It did not prove possible to modify the Victors. The project came to an abrupt halt when the US government cancelled Skybolt on 31 December 1962, but the vestigial attachment points were used for AN/ALQ-101 electronic countermeasure pods during the
Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
. To replace Skybolt, the
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
, Harold Macmillan, negotiated the
Nassau Agreement The Nassau Agreement, concluded on 21 December 1962, was an agreement negotiated between President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to end the Skybolt Crisis. A series of meet ...
with the
President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
on 3 January 1963, under which the US agreed to supply the UK with Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles instead. This spelt the beginning of the end of the V bombers' nuclear deterrent, but six more years passed before the submarines were built and the Royal Navy was able to take over responsibility. Although originally part of the V force, three squadrons of Valiants were assigned to
SACEUR The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is the commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Allied Command Operations (ACO) and head of ACO's headquarters, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). The commander is ...
as part of the TBF (Tactical Bomber Force), while remaining part of Bomber Command for training and administration. As the new Victors and Vulcans became available, Valiants became surplus to the planned V force of 144 aircraft. It was proposed that 24 Valiants could replace 64 Canberra bombers. This represented a numerical reduction in the force available to SACEUR, but an improvement in capability due to the Valiants' all-weather strike capacity. The decision was taken by the Air Council on 15 May 1958. The first squadron to be assigned was No. 207 Squadron, on 1 January 1960. It was followed by No. 49 Squadron on 1 July, and No. 148 on 13 July. No. 49 Squadron moved to RAF Marham so that all three squadrons were concentrated there. They were each equipped with two Mark 28 nuclear bombs provided by Project E. The three TBF squadrons eventually became the only Valiant bomber squadrons as all the others were disbanded or converted to tanker or strategic reconnaissance roles. They adopted SACEUR's
Quick Reaction Alert Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) is state of readiness and '' modus operandi'' of air defence maintained at all hours of the day by NATO air forces. The United States usually refers to Quick Reaction Alert as 'Airspace Control Alert'. Some non-NATO c ...
, under which arrangements were made so that three armed aircraft were always ready to scramble within 15 minutes. They were also the first V bombers to adopt a low-level strike role, with their white paintwork replaced by green camouflage. During the
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
, each V force squadron kept one fully armed aircraft and crew at 15 minutes' readiness. By 1963, the RAF was convinced that, to have any chance of survival, the V bombers would have to attack at low level. At altitudes below , radar was less effective due to ground-generated clutter. The three Vulcan B.1A squadrons at RAF Waddington and the four Victor B.1A squadrons at RAF Honington and RAF Cottesmore were ordered to switch to low-level operations in March 1963. The Vulcan B.2 and Victor B.2 squadrons followed on 1 May 1964. A sign of the new doctrine was the replacement of their white paintwork with green camouflage on their upper surfaces, starting with Vulcan XH505 on 24 March 1964. They were also outfitted with new ECMs, ground positioning equipment and terrain-following radar. Tests performed in the UK and at Woomera demonstrated that Blue Steel could be launched from low level. The Yellow Sun Mark 2 free-fall bomb was a different story, and V bombers equipped with it would have had to climb to medium altitude to release it. A new bomb, the
WE.177 The WE.177, originally styled as WE 177, and sometimes simply as WE177, was a series of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons with which the Royal Navy (RN) and the Royal Air Force (RAF) were equipped. It was the primary air-dropped nuclear we ...
was developed. Deliveries of the WE.177B commenced in September 1966. Through Project E and the introduction of the smaller, lighter Red Beard bomb, which entered service in 1960, by the mid-1960s Canberras and the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
's
Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...
were able to deliver nuclear weapons, but their power was insignificant compared with that of the 109 Victor and Vulcan bombers. The V bombers were formally relieved of their role as the deliverer of the UK strategic nuclear deterrent, which officially passed to the Polaris ballistic missile submarines of the Royal Navy on 1 July 1969. The last Blue Steel mission was flown on 21 December 1970. Five Vulcan squadrons continued to serve with the WE.177B weapon in a tactical role in Europe with SACEUR. Nos 9 and 35 Squadrons moved to
RAF Akrotiri RAF Akrotiri ( el, Βασιλική Πολεμική Αεροπορία Ακρωτηρίου) is a large Royal Air Force base on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. It is located in the Western Sovereign Base Area, one of two areas which compr ...
in Cyprus, where they replaced Canberra bombers in support of
CENTO The Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), also known as the Baghdad Pact and subsequently known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was a military alliance of the Cold War. It was formed in 24 February 1955 by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Tur ...
and operations on NATO's southern flank. They were withdrawn in 1975 in the wake of the
Turkish invasion of Cyprus The Turkish invasion of Cyprus began on 20 July 1974 and progressed in two phases over the following month. Taking place upon a background of Cypriot intercommunal violence, intercommunal violence between Greek Cypriots, Greek and Turkish ...
. Six squadrons of Vulcans were still assigned this role with the WE.177 weapon in 1981. The last four remaining squadrons were about to disband in 1982 when called upon to assist in the Falklands War.


Conventional mission


Suez crisis

The first V bomber to see combat use with conventional bombs was the Valiant in Operation Musketeer, the Anglo-French military response in the
Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
in 1956. It was the first and only time the Valiants dropped bombs in combat operations. RAF units began deploying to Malta in September 1956, and when Israel attacked Egypt on 29 October 1956, four Valiant squadrons—Nos 138, 148, 207 and 214 Squadrons—were based at
RAF Luqa Royal Air Force Luqa was a Royal Air Force station located on the island of Malta, now developed into the Malta International Airport. It hosted aircraft of Air Headquarters Malta (AHQ Malta) during the Second World War. Particularly during ...
. No. 138 Squadron was the only one with a full complement of eight Valiants; Nos 148 and 207 each had six, and No. 214 had only four. The initial objective was to neutralise the Egyptian Air Force, which was believed to have about 100 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet fighters and 30 Ilyushin Il-28 twin-engine jet bombers. The Egyptian
early-warning radar An early-warning radar is any radar system used primarily for the long-range detection of its targets, i.e., allowing defences to be alerted as ''early'' as possible before the intruder reaches its target, giving the air defences the maximum t ...
system was known to be non-operational due to lack of maintenance and spare parts, so the bombers were ordered to operate at night when the visually-controlled defences would be least effective. This meant a reversion to the tactics used by Bomber Command in the Second World War. The Valiants were neither trained nor equipped for such a mission. Not all of the Valiants were equipped with the Navigation and Bombing System (NBS) and it was not serviceable in all of those that were. This forced a reversion to the older, visual bomb sight. The Valiants and Canberras were equipped with the Gee-H
radio navigation Radio navigation or radionavigation is the application of radio frequencies to determine a position of an object on the Earth, either the vessel or an obstruction. Like radiolocation, it is a type of radiodetermination. The basic principles a ...
system, but it could not be used as there were no beacons in the Middle East. However, the Valiants were also equipped with Green Satin radar, which could still be used. The first mission was flown on 31 October, in co-operation with Canberra bombers from Malta and Cyprus. The target was five Egyptian airbases in the
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
area, including Cairo West Air Base. At the last minute, it was discovered that fifteen US transport aircraft were at Cairo West evacuating civilians, and the target had to be altered while the bombers were already in the air. The Valiants dropped target markers, and then Canberras dropped flares to illuminate the target area. This allowed other Canberras to drop bombs on the runways. This pattern was repeated in attacks on four airfields in the Nile Delta and eight in the
Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
area over the next two nights. The Valiant's final mission was flown on 3 November against El Agami Island, which was believed to be a submarine repair depot. By the time operations ended, of bombs had been dropped, half of which had fallen within of their targets. The results were unimpressive. Three of the seven main Egyptian airbases remained fully operational, one had its runway shortened, and one had three craters that needed filling. The only airbase that was completely out of commission was Cairo West, and then only because of Egyptian demolitions.


Far East operations

On 29 October 1957, three Valiants from No. 214 Squadron flew to
RAF Changi Changi () is a planning area located in the geographical region of Tanah Merah in the East Region of Singapore. Sharing borders with Pasir Ris and Tampines to the west, Changi Bay to the southeast, the South China Sea to the east and the Ser ...
in Singapore for a fortnight to gain experience operating in the Far East. This was known as Exercise Profiteer. Subsequently, small detachments of Valiants and Vulcans deployed to the Far East for a fortnight every three months until June 1960. Although the Malayan Emergency was ongoing at this time, none of the Exercise Profiteer aircraft participated in combat operations. When the Valiants were assigned to SACEUR for operations in Europe, the conventional mission in the Middle East was assigned to the Vulcans at RAF Waddington, while that in the Far East was given to the Victors based at RAF Cottesmore and RAF Honington. When the
Indonesian Confrontation Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...
heated up in December 1963, eight Victors from Nos 10 and 15 Squadrons were sent to the Far East, where they were based at
RAF Tengah ''Tengah'' is an Indonesian and Malay word meaning "Central". It can be found in topography, e.g. *Kalimantan Tengah *Tengah Islands or Central Archipelago. *Tengah, Singapore *Tengah Air Base The Tengah Air Base is a military airbase of ...
and RAAF Butterworth. The crews normally served 3-month tours. No. 10 Squadron was disbanded in March 1964, and No. 15 Squadron in October. No. 12(B) Squadron replaced them at RAAF Butterworth from October. The Vulcans were recalled to UK in December 1964 whilst the responsibility for the Far East fell on temporary detachments of Vulcans of Nos 9, 12 and 35 Squadrons with up to 16 aircraft for short periods. Tensions decreased after March 1965, and the size of the detachment was cut to four aircraft. As the Waddington Wing converted to the Mk2 Vulcan the responsibility was transferred to Nos 44, 50 and 101 Squadrons. Annual deployments in support of SEATO continued for some years.


Falklands War

During the 1982 Falklands War, Vulcan bombers from Nos 44, 50 and 101 Squadrons, supported by Victor tankers from Nos 55 and 57 Squadrons, carried out a series of seven extremely long-range ground attack missions against Argentine positions in the
Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...
. The operation was codenamed
Black Buck The blackbuck (''Antilope cervicapra''), also known as the Indian antelope, is an antelope native to India and Nepal. It inhabits grassy plains and lightly forested areas with perennial water sources. It stands up to high at the shoulder. Ma ...
. The objectives of the missions were to attack
Port Stanley Airport Port Stanley Airport is an airport in the Falkland Islands, outside the capital, Stanley. The airport is the only civilian airport in the islands with a paved runway. However, RAF Mount Pleasant, located to the west of Stanley, functions ...
and its associated defences. While the Vulcans were capable of carrying conventional munitions, this had not been done for a long time. To carry twenty-one bombs, the Vulcan required three sets of bomb carriers, each of which held seven bombs. Their release was controlled by a panel at the navigator's station known as a 90-way that monitored the electrical connections to each bomb, and was said to provide 90 different sequences for releasing the bombs. None of the Vulcans at RAF Waddington were fitted with the bomb racks or the 90-way. A search of the supply dumps at Waddington and RAF Scampton located the 90-way panels, which were fitted and tested, but finding enough septuple bomb carriers proved harder, and at least nine were required. Someone remembered that some had been sold to a scrapyard in
Newark-on-Trent Newark-on-Trent or Newark () is a market town and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district in Nottinghamshire, England. It is on the River Trent, and was historically a major inland port. The A1 road (Great Britain), A1 road bypasses th ...
, and they were retrieved from there. Locating sufficient bombs also proved difficult, and only 167 could be found, and some had cast bomb cases instead of the preferable machined ones. Training of crews in conventional bombing and in-flight refuelling was carried out from 14 to 17 April 1982. The raids, at almost and 15 hours for the return journey, were the longest-ranged bombing raids in history at the time. The Black Buck raids were staged from
RAF Ascension Island RAF Ascension Island , also known as Wideawake Airfield or Ascension Island Auxiliary Field, is a military airfield and facility located on Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean. The airfield is jointly operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) a ...
, close to the equator. The Vulcans lacked the range to fly to the Falklands without refuelling several times, as did the converted Victor tankers, so they too had to be refuelled in flight. Eleven tankers were required for two Vulcans, a huge
logistical Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...
effort as all aircraft had to use the same runway. The aircraft carried either twenty-one bombs internally or two or four Shrike anti-radar missiles externally. Of the five Black Buck raids flown to completion, three were against Stanley Airfield's runway and operational facilities, and the other two were anti-radar missions using Shrike missiles against a Westinghouse
AN/TPS-43 The AN/TPS-43 is a transportable air search 3D radar produced in the United States originally by Westinghouse Defense and Electronic Division, which was later purchased by Northrop-Grumman. It is used primarily for early warning and tactical co ...
long-range 3D radar in the Port Stanley area. Shrikes hit two of the less valuable and rapidly replaced secondary fire control radars, causing minor damage.


Withdrawal of the Valiants

In July 1964, a Valiant of No. 543 Squadron (WZ394) on a deployment to Rhodesia was found to have cracks in the rear wing spar and was ferried back to the UK for repairs. The following month, a Valiant from No. 232 Operational Conversion Unit (WP217) suffered a wing spar failure during a training exercise over Wales. The whole Valiant fleet was checked, and many were found to have significant cracks in the wing spars. Those that were considered to have little or no damage were cleared to fly, but with a temporary restriction to a maximum speed of , maximum load of , and a maximum bank angle of 30 degrees. When Vickers commenced repairs, it was found that the damage was more severe than first thought, and the entire fleet was grounded on 9 December 1964, and withdrawn from service. At first it was thought that the switch to low-level flying was the cause, but cracks were also found in Valiants that were in service as tanker and strategic reconnaissance aircraft, and had not been flown at low level. Suspicion then fell on the aluminium alloy that had been used, DTD683. One Valiant (XD816) remained in service as a test aircraft, having been re-sparred.


Electronic countermeasures and reconnaissance

Valiants served in a photo-reconnaissance role with No. 543 Squadron, commencing in the second half of 1955. At least seven Valiants were configured to the ECM role, serving with No. 199 Squadron from 30 September 1957. These aircraft were ultimately fitted with APT-16A and ALT-7 jamming transmitters,
Airborne Cigar Airborne Cigar, or ABC for short, was a World War II electronic countermeasure (ECM) system developed by the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) to jam ''Luftwaffe'' ground-to-air radios operating in the very high frequency (VHF) ba ...
and Carpet
jammers Jammer may refer to: Signal blocking devices * Radar jammer, a device used in radar jamming and deception * Radio jammer, a device used in radio jamming * Radio-controlled Improvised Explosive Device jammer, a counter-IED device * Mobile phone ...
, APR-4 and APR-9 "sniffing" receivers, and chaff dispensers. After the Valiants were grounded, the timetable for the development of a photo-reconnaissance version of the Victor, known as the SR.2, was accelerated. A prototype (XL165) was flown for the first time on 23 February 1965, and the first aircraft (XL230) was delivered to No. 543 Squadron on 18 May 1965. The Victor SR.2s carried out extensive photographic survey work, which assumed increased importance after the bombers switched to low-level operations. No. 543 Squadron was disbanded on 31 May 1974, but a flight of four remained until 30 March 1975 to participate in
French nuclear weapons testing France is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons. France was the fourth country to test an independently de ...
in the Pacific. Responsibility for the reconnaissance role passed to No. 27 Squadron, which had been re-formed in November 1973, and operated the Vulcan SR.2. No. 27 Squadron was disbanded in March 1982.


Aerial refuelling

In addition to the roles for which they were designed, all three V bombers served as
aerial refuelling Aerial refueling, also referred to as air refueling, in-flight refueling (IFR), air-to-air refueling (AAR), and tanking, is the process of transferring aviation fuel from one aircraft (the tanker) to another (the receiver) while both aircraft a ...
tankers at one time or another. The Valiant was the RAF's first large-scale tanker. The probe and drogue system for aerial refuelling was developed by Sir
Alan Cobham Sir Alan John Cobham, KBE, AFC (6 May 1894 – 21 October 1973) was an English aviation pioneer. Early life and family As a child he attended Wilson's School, then in Camberwell, London. The school relocated to the former site of Croydo ...
, but the Air Ministry doubted its value so long as Britain maintained bases around the world. However, on 8 January 1954, the Air Staff decided that the V bombers should be capable of both aerial refuelling and acting as tankers, and an Operational Requirement (OR3580) was issued in 1956 for an electronic positioning system to facilitate aerial refuelling. Initially, there were no aircraft to perform the role, but two new types of Valiant were ordered. Fourteen B(PR)K.1 versions were produced. These were a tanker variant of the photo-reconnaissance model, with a hose drum unit (HDU) in the bomb bay. The final production model of the Valiant was the BK.1 version, which had a fuel tank in the front of the bomb bay and an HDU in the rear. Some 44 were built. No. 214 Squadron was selected to carry out tanker trials, while retaining its bombing role, in February 1958. The trials were successful. In August 1961, a second Valiant squadron, No. 90 Squadron, was ordered to begin training in the aerial refuelling role. Nos 90 and 214 Squadrons became full-time tanker squadrons on 1 April 1962. In a demonstration on 20/21 June 1962, a Vulcan B.1A from No. 617 Squadron flew non-stop from RAF Scampton to
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
in 20 hours and 5 minutes, refuelled four times by tankers from No. 214 Squadron. They served in the role until the Valiants were abruptly withdrawn from service. Work was already under way to replace the Valiants with Victors. A proposal to convert Victor B.1s and B.1As was first considered by the Air Staff on 25 May 1961 and was endorsed by the
Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence The Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK's Ministry of Defence is responsible for providing strategic management of science and technology issues in the MOD, most directly through the MOD research budget of well over £1 billion, and sits as a full me ...
, Sir
Solly Zuckerman Solomon "Solly" Zuckerman, Baron Zuckerman (30 May 1904 – 1 April 1993) was a British public servant, zoologist and operational research pioneer. He is best remembered as a scientific advisor to the Allies on bombing strategy in the Second Wo ...
, and the Chiefs of Staff in 1963. The Defence Research Policy Committee (DRPC) estimated that converting 27 aircraft would cost £7 million. This would provide sufficient aircraft for three tanker squadrons. The price tag soon increased to £8 million for 24 aircraft, and the Treasury was reluctant to spend that much money pending a review of Britain's overseas defence commitments, which would establish whether a third squadron was required. There were also doubts about the financial viability of Handley Page. Approval was given for the conversion of twelve aircraft on 12 June, three more on 9 July, and another nine on 15 September. The second production Victor B.1 (XA918) was converted into a prototype tanker. This involved the installation of Flight Refuelling Mark 20B pods on each wing to refuel fighter aircraft, two fuel tanks in the bomb bay, and a Flight Refuelling Mark 17 HDU in the bomb bay for bombers and transport aircraft. The grounding of the Valiant tankers injected some urgency into the situation, as the RAF lost its refuelling capability. Six Victor K.1A tankers were delivered to No. 55 Squadron at RAF Marham in May and June 1965, but these were not full conversions, as they had only the underwing refuelling pods, and retained their bombing capability. As Victor tankers became available, a second tanker squadron, No. 57 Squadron, was formed at RAF Marham on 14 February 1966, and a third was added on 1 July 1966 when No. 214 Squadron was re-formed. The last Victor bomber squadrons, Nos 100 and 139 Squadrons, were disbanded on 1 October and 31 December 1968 respectively. It was decided to convert their Victor B.2s into tankers. However, while the Vulcans' rigid delta wing coped well with low-altitude flight, it subjected the Victors' slender wings to considerable flexing, and they suffered badly from fatigue cracks. Repairing them became a major cost of the tanker conversion programme, and some Victors were determined to be beyond economical repair. The Victor SR.2s were withdrawn from service to make up the numbers, and were replaced by Vulcans. Due to the increased costs, none of the SR.2s were modified, and only 21 Victor K.2 tankers were converted. Handley Page went into liquidation in August 1969, and the subsequent work was undertaken by Hawker Siddeley. The first Victor K.2 tanker made its maiden flight on 1 March 1972. No. 55 Squadron began re-equipping with the Victor K.2 on 1 July 1975, followed by No. 57 Squadron on 7 June 1976. No. 214 Squadron retained its K.1As until it was disbanded on 28 February 1977, reducing the RAF's tanker fleet to just two squadrons. During the Falklands War, the commitments of the Victor tanker fleet became overwhelming. All available tankers were deployed to support operations there. Only the Victor tanker fleet made it possible for the transport aircraft to reach Ascension Island with vital supplies, and for the Vulcan bombers to reach the Falkland Islands for Operation Black Buck. In the meantime, the RAF forces in the UK were serviced by USAF Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers. Work was in progress to convert VC-10s into tankers, but as an interim measure it was decided to convert some
Lockheed C-130 Hercules The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally desig ...
and Vulcan bombers. The equipment in the ECM bay was removed and a Mark 17 HDU installed there. The first of six converted Vulcan tankers (XH561 - the others being XH558, XH560, XJ825, XL445 and XM571) flew on 18 June 1982, just seven weeks after the conversion work began, and the first Vulcan K.2 tanker was delivered to the RAF five days later. The HDUs used were those earmarked for the VC-10 conversion programme, so as these were completed, the HDUs were removed from the Vulcans, starting with Vulcan XJ825 on 4 May 1983. No. 617 Squadron was disbanded on 31 December 1981, followed by No. 35 Squadron on 1 March 1982, and No. 9 Squadron on 1 May 1982. This left only Nos 44, 50 and 101 Squadrons at RAF Waddington, which were all scheduled to disband by 1 July 1982, with their tactical nuclear mission passing to the
Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multirole combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and West Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS (inter ...
. The Falklands War intervened, providing a temporary reprieve. No. 101 Squadron was disbanded on 4 August 1982, and No. 44 Squadron on 21 December 1982. The last Vulcan unit, No. 50 Squadron at RAF Waddington, was disbanded on 13 March 1984, leaving behind six K.2s and three B.2s. The Ministry of Defence decided to retain a Vulcan in service for air shows. This role was filled by
XL426 Avro Vulcan XL426 is one of three remaining taxiable Avro Vulcan strategic bombers, the other two being XH558 and XM655. It has been owned and maintained by the Southend-on-Sea-based registered charity the Vulcan Restoration Trust since 1993 a ...
, and then by
XH558 Avro Vulcan XH558 ( military serial ''XH558'', civil aircraft registration ''G-VLCN'') ''Spirit of Great Britain'' was the last remaining airworthy example of the 134 Avro Vulcan jet-powered delta winged strategic nuclear bomber aircraft opera ...
.In 1992, XH558 was sold to a private owner, and it made its last RAF flight on 23 March 1993. The Victor tankers saw active service again in the
Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
, with eight deploying to
Muharraq Muharraq ( ar, المحرق, al-Muḥarraq) is Bahrain's third largest city and served as its capital until 1932 when it was replaced by Manama. The population of Muharraq in 2012 was 176,583. The city is located on Muharraq Island. Bahrain Int ...
in Bahrain between December 1990 and March 1991. Victor tankers subsequently deployed to Akrotiri in support of
Operation Warden The International Force East Timor (INTERFET) was a multinational non-United Nations peacemaking task force, organised and led by Australia in accordance with United Nations resolutions to address the humanitarian and security crisis that took ...
, the operations to protect Kurdish communities in the northern part of Iraq, and to Muharraq in support of
Operation Jural Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Operation (game), ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * Operations (magazine ...
in southern Iraq. The tankers returned to RAF Marham in September 1993, where No. 55 Squadron, the last Victor unit, was disbanded on 15 October 1993.


Preservation

On 8 February 2007, the
Royal Air Force Museum Cosford The Royal Air Force Museum Cosford, located in Cosford in Shropshire, is a free (currently, 2022) museum dedicated to the history of aviation and the Royal Air Force in particular. The museum is part of the Royal Air Force Museum, a non-departme ...
opened the National Cold War Exhibition at
RAF Cosford Royal Air Force Cosford or RAF Cosford (formerly DCAE Cosford) is a Royal Air Force station in Cosford, Shropshire, just to the northwest of Wolverhampton and next to Albrighton. History Origins RAF Cosford opened in 1938 as a joint aircraf ...
in Shropshire to tell the story of the Cold War. This exhibition brought together static displays of all three types of V bomber in one location for the first time. The museum's director general, Dr
Michael A. Fopp Michael A. Fopp is a retired National Museum Director. Michael Fopp is the son of an Australian Battle of Britain fighter pilot. He grew up surrounded by aeroplanes, but left the Reading Blue Coat School to follow a childhood dream of riding hor ...
, stated the goal was "people will leave feeling better informed about what happened in the second half of the 20th Century." Vulcan XH558 (Civil Registration G-VLCN), flew until October 2015, funded by public donations. It was displayed at airshows and events. It will be used as a centrepiece for engineering excellence, showing what an advanced design it was for the period.


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Portal bar, Aviation, Politics, United Kingdom, Nuclear technology, War Nuclear history of the United Kingdom