nuclear-news

During the cold war, a list of the places thought most likely to come under nuclear attack by the Soviet Union was agreed by the intelligence services, military commanders and the Cabinet Office under Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. The list of “probable nuclear targets in the United Kingdom” approved by the Cabinet Office was issued to defence chiefs marked “top secret” by air commodore Brian Stanbridge in May 1972. It included 38 towns and cities, 37 UK and US air bases, 25 control, communications and radar facilities and six naval sites. Experts expected London to be devastated by two to four bombs of up to five megatons each exploding over the city.

Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham were each said to be in line for one or two “airbursts” of up to five megatons – 333 times more powerful than the 15-kiloton US nuclear bomb that flattened the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945, killing 140,000 people. According to military planners, some of the UK’s more remote regions could also have been blasted. RAF St Mawgan, near to Newquay, was down to be hit by a three-megaton bomb. A military base in Plymouth was also apparently doomed as it too featured on the chilling list. Other top secret memos from 1971 said that the target list was drawn up for military planning purposes and to help “contingency planning particularly in the field of home defence.” According to former nuclear weapons design engineer Brian Burnell, who discovered the documents, the real aim was not to defend civilian targets. Military planners wanted to try to ensure that UK-based nuclear bombers survived to launch a counter-attack against the Soviet Union, he said. He added that the Whitehall planners were confused about Soviet military intentions. “I’m baffled by the omission of targets like power plants, or other major infrastructure.” A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said: “These are historical records and like many other documents released every year by the National Archives have little or no relevance to the present day.” Read more at http://www.cornishguardian.co.uk/Documents-reveal-Newquay-probable-nuclear-target/story-21329076-detail/story.html#5Yc6go2PAiOqKmZF.99