|
Atomic Weapons Establishment
} The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence research facility responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK's nuclear weapons. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) with its main site on the former RAF Aldermaston and has major facilities at Burghfield, Blacknest and RNAD Coulport. AWE plc, responsible for the day-to-day operations of AWE, is owned by the Ministry of Defence and operated as a non-departmental public body. Until June 2021, AWE plc was owned by a consortium of Jacobs Engineering Group, Lockheed Martin UK, and Serco through AWE Management Ltd, which held a 25‑year contract (until March 2025) to operate AWE, although all the sites remained owned by the Government of the United Kingdom which had a golden share in AWE plc. In November 2020, it was announced that the Ministry of Defence had triggered a contractual break point and would take ownership of AWE ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Non-departmental Public Body
In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process of national government but are not part of a government department. NDPBs carry out their work largely independently from ministers and are accountable to the public through Parliament; however, ministers are responsible for the independence, effectiveness, and efficiency of non-departmental public bodies in their portfolio. The term includes the four types of NDPB (executive, advisory, tribunal, and independent monitoring boards) but excludes public corporations and public broadcasters ( BBC, Channel 4, and S4C). Types of body The UK Government classifies bodies into four main types. The Scottish Government also has a fifth category: NHS bodies. Advisory NDPBs These bodies consist of boards which advise ministers on particular policy a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Government Of The United Kingdom
His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.Overview of the UK system of government : Directgov – Government, citizens and rights Archived direct.gov.uk webpage. Retrieved on 29 August 2014. The government is led by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime minister (Keir Starmer since 5 July 2024) who appoints all the other British Government frontbench, ministers. The country has had a Labour Party (UK), Labour government since 2024 United Kingdom general election, 2024. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
William Penney, Baron 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 development of High Explosive Research, Britain's clandestine nuclear programme that started in 1942 during the Second World War which produced the first British atomic bomb in 1952. As the head of the British delegation working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Laboratory, Penney initially carried out calculations to predict the damage effects generated by the blast wave of an atomic bomb. Upon returning home, Penney directed the British nuclear weapons directorate, codenamed Tube Alloys and directed scientific research at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment which resulted in the first detonation of a British nuclear bomb in Operation Hurricane in 1952. After the test, Penney became chief advisor to the new United Kingd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ninth Air Force
The Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) is a Numbered Air Force of the United States Air Force headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. It is the Air Force Service Component of United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), a joint Department of Defense combatant command responsible for U.S. security interests in 27 nations that stretch from the Horn of Africa through the Persian Gulf region, into Central Asia. Activated as 9th Air Force on 8 April 1942, the command fought in World War II both in the Western Desert Campaign in Egypt and Libya and as the tactical fighter component of the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe, engaging enemy forces in France, the Low Countries and in Nazi Germany. During the Cold War, it was one of two Numbered Air Forces of Tactical Air Command. Co-designated as United States Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) on 1 January 1983, on 2009 as part of a complicated transfer of lineage, the lineage and history of the Ninth Air Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Eighth Air Force
The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Forces Strategic – Global Strike, one of the air components of United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). The Eighth Air Force includes the heart of America's heavy bomber force: the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, the Rockwell B-1 Lancer supersonic bomber, and the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress heavy bomber aircraft. VIII Bomber Command of the United States Army Air Forces was established early in 1942. The first combat units arrived in the United Kingdom in June and combat operations began in July with first heavy bomber operations in August. Its bomber units were deployed in the UK, chiefly around East Anglia. From June 1943 it was the daylight bombing part of the Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany. VIII Bomber Command was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allies of World War I, Allied victory over the Central Powers in 1918, the RAF emerged as the largest air force in the world at the time. Since its formation, the RAF has played History of the Royal Air Force, a significant role in Military history of the United Kingdom, British military history. In particular, during the Second World War, the RAF established Air supremacy, air superiority over Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, and led the Allied strategic bombing effort. The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence (MOD), which are to "provide the capabilities nee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks in World War II, Tanks and Air warfare of World War II, aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in history, causing World War II casualties, the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Allied-occupied Germany, Germany, Allied-occupied Austria, Austria, Occupation of Japan, Japan, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ministry Of Supply
The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed on 1 August 1939 by the Ministry of Supply Act 1939 ( 2 & 3 Geo. 6. c. 38) to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for aircraft production, and the Admiralty retained responsibilities for supplying the Royal Navy.Hornby (1958) During the war years the MoS was based at Shell Mex House in The Strand, London. The Ministry of Supply also took over all army research establishments in 1939. The Ministry of Aircraft Production was abolished in 1946, and the MoS took over its responsibilities for aircraft, including the associated research establishments. In the same year, it also took on increased responsibilities for atomic weapons, including the H-bomb development programme. The Ministry of Supply was abolished in late 1959 and its responsibilities passed to the Ministry of Aviation, the War Of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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 return to isolationism, fears that Britain might lose its great power status, and the actions by the United States to withdraw unilaterally from sharing of nuclear technology under the 1943 Quebec Agreement. The decision was publicly announced in the House of Commons on 12 May 1948. HER was a civil project, not a military one. Staff were drawn from and recruited into the Civil Service, and were paid Civil Service salaries. It was headed by Lord Portal, as Controller of Production, Atomic Energy, in the Ministry of Supply. An Atomic Energy Research Establishment was located at a former airfield, Harwell, in Berkshire, under the direction of John Cockcroft. The first nuclear reactor in the UK, a small research reactor known as GLEEP, went ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Direct Action Committee
The Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War or the Direct Action Committee (DAC) was a pacifist organisation formed "to assist the conducting of non-violent direct action to obtain the total renunciation of nuclear war and its weapons by Britain and all other countries as a first step in disarmament". It existed from 1957 to 1961, when it was largely subsumed into the Committee of 100, but it was, historian Martin Shaw argues, the original driving force of the mass movement against nuclear weapons in Britain. Origins The DAC was formed in response to the British H-Bomb tests carried out between 1956 and 1958. In 1957, at the time of one of the tests on Christmas Island, Harold Steele planned to sail into the test area in protest. He was unable to do so but his supporters formed a committee and marched in support to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. The original committee comprised: * J. Allen Skinner * Hugh Brock and * Arlo Tatum. They were soon joined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Aldermaston Marches
The Aldermaston marches were anti-nuclear weapons demonstrations in the 1950s and 1960s, taking place on Easter weekend between the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, and London, over a distance of fifty-two miles, or roughly 83 km. At their height in the early 1960s they attracted tens of thousands of people and were the highlight of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) calendar. Similar demonstrations also took place around the world. The first major Aldermaston march at Easter (4–7 April), 1958, was organised by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and supported by the recently formed CND. Several thousand people marched for four days from Trafalgar Square, London, to the Atomic Weapons Establishment to demonstrate their opposition to nuclear weapons. Hugh Brock, one of the organisers, records that he was one of thirty-five people to have marched to Aldermaston six years before in 1952 as part of Operatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a tidal estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre, the City of London, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of Government of the United Kingdom, the national government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. London grew rapidly 19th-century London, in the 19th century, becoming the world's List of largest cities throughout history, largest city at the time. Since the 19th cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
