David J. Rose

By djrose007

V-Force

Emergency Blip, no photographs taken today so just snapped these on my shelf.
The Valiant is missing but I have the diecast Vulcan (XL321), with Blue Steel missile, and Victor (XL158) models. Two aircraft I used to communicate with during my two years at my first posting out of training, HQ Bomber Command, RAF High Wycombe. These models are in the white Anti-Flash livery to make them less vulnerable to the atomic flash if they ever had to drop a nuclear bomb. Later, 70's I think, they changed to camouflage as their role changed after the Royal Navy took over the nuclear deterrent role with Polaris equipped submarines. 
I was down in a hole in the ground, about two levels down, the operations centre was a further floor down from the Communications Centre.
I spent a lot of my time in the radio room communicating using HF CW (High Frequency Continuous Wave (Morse Code)) and voice communications. It was an exciting place to work, and sometimes a bit too exciting when over the speaker you heard "This is the Bomber Controller, Scramble Scramble Scramble". This was the command for all of the QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) V-Force bombers to take to the air, within 4 minutes.
It' happened a few times during my two years and what made it so scary, as well as exciting, is that it was not prefixed with an Exercise name. E.g. 
"This is the Bomber Controller, Exercise Mickey Finn Scramble Scramble Scramble", still exciting but without the fear that we were going into a Nuclear War.
During that Exercise Mickey Finn there was a period of build up to it starting with some skirmishes on the USSR border with China, over time it spread until WW3 started. 15 minutes later the operations officer popped up to see us and announce "I'm sorry chaps but you are all dead", even being underground didn't protect you from a near strike from an ICBM (InterContinental Ballistic Missile) with a nuclear warhead.
April 1968 Bomber Command changed it's name to Strike Command and two months later I found myself on the mysterious island of Masirah, Oman.
RAF MASIRAH, OMAN, REMEMBERED - HOME (weebly.com)  (My website)

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