As World War II came to an end and America's nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shocked the world, it became clear that the nascent Cold War would be as different a conflagration from WWII as that war was from WWI. Believing that the UK was extremely vulnerable to nuclear attack, it was quickly determined that only 'the threat of large-scale damage from similar weapons' could prevent a Soviet attack. And, thus, V-Force was born.
Entered into service between 1955 and 1957, the three models of V class bombers that made up Britain's strategic nuclear strike force - the Vickers Valiant, Avro Vulcan and Handley Page Victor - were modern marvels of machinery. Capable of both high- and low-level attack with their slick delta wing designs, and supremely quick despite the massive bomb loads they carried, these aircraft were central tenets of Britain's nuclear weapons development.
Despite a fall as precipitous as their rise when the Royal Navy took over Britain's nuclear deterrent role in 1968, like a phoenix from the ashes, the V bombers enjoyed a second life as conventional bombers: the Valiant gaining fame in the Suez Crisis; the Victors in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation, and the Vulcans undertook the longest bombing raid in history for Operation Black Buck in the Falklands Campaign of 1982.
V-Force is both an ode to these most resilient and beautiful of British aircraft, and a lens through which to view Britain's Cold War experience.
Map: V-bomber Dispersal Bases and Airfields Prologue: In balance with
this life, this death
Chapter 1: Weapons of Mass Destruction I: The bomber
will always get through
Chapter 2: Weapons of Mass Destruction II: All
changed, changed utterly
Chapter 3: Weapons of Mass Destruction III:
Inception
Chapter 4: QRA and Other Early Service
Chapter 5: Missiles
Chapter
6: Impact
Chapter 7: Swords Into Ploughshares
Chapter 8: Rivals -
USSR/USA/France
Chapter 9: What Might Have Been
Chapter 10: Post-Polaris
Chapter 11: Vulcan to the Sky Afterword: Afterword
Jonathan Glancey is well known as the former architecture and design correspondent of the Guardian and Independent newspapers. A frequent broadcaster, his books include Wings Over Water, The Journey Matters, Concorde, Harrier, Giants of Steam, Spitfire, Nagaland, Tornado and The Story of Architecture.
