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Early Warning of a Nuclear Attack
In October 2020 I printed this in the village magazine:
Last month we published an article by David Emory about an experimental early warning system that was partly based at Feltwell. Coincidentally I bumped into Mr Jeremy Porter and we discussed the article and he told me about a speaker system that his father, Edwin Porter, had had on his desk when he was the Chair of the Parish Council. Apparently, the device had to be listened to at a certain time and at regular intervals. Generally nothing came out of it but static but occasionally there was a message. Jeremy wondered if it had anything to do with the early warning system. I messaged David about this and he replied, "I’m not an expert on the warning infrastructure but the Parish Council device may possibly have been a “carrier receiver unit” whose purpose was indeed to receive warning of an imminent attack. There were some 19,000 of them installed in rural locations and they were at the end of a one-way line.
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As a former Parish Chairman myself
I can’t imagine the responsibility of having one of these and what it
must have felt like to listen to the message. Edwin must have worried each
time he pressed the button and been very relieved when he didn’t get any
bad news.
In response to the article I got this from Mr Chris Cock, former C/Obs 6/47 Mundford Post Royal Observer Corps: I was interested to see mention of the the carrier receiver equipment. The warnings of air attack and nuclear fallout approaching would be sent to us via normally major Police stations. When switched on (normally on exercises or at times of national emergency) the CW would tick continuously rather like a sonar in a submarine. Then suddenly it would emit a high pitched wail and a voice would say, “Air attack warning red and repeated several times. We would then shut down all the hatches and vents and sound a local warning by hand operated siren, then take cover in the underground post. Once the explosion had been triangulated fallout warnings would be given by another wailing sound coming from the CW and the operator would say, “fallout warning Black Norwich 31,32,33, 34, 35“ etc (Mundford was 33). No doubt Mr Porter would have a number on his set also. We would then go out and fire a set of projectiles known as Maroons which would soar into the sky and form 3 loud explosions indicating the public should expect nuclear radioactive fallout. A couple of pictures below taken in 1982 at the underground monitoring post at Mundford of myself with our CW on the worktop.
Top: me in official guise as no2 Observer.
Bottom: me again in the centre in unofficial mode wearing protective clothing ie NBC kit. |
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A
relevant link to the CW
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