Cold War Nuclear Bunker (Rotor Bunker)

Some old footage from a tour around the Rotor Bunker at RAF Holmpton. A Wiki article states :

Royal Air Force Holmpton is a former Cold War era nuclear bunker that was built in the 1950s as an early warning radar station. Located just south of the village of Holmpton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Royal Air Force Holmpton is still a part of the RAF and the Defence Estate (2010). In 2004 a major Public Exhibition opened at the site which now hosts regular public tours of the fully restored Cold War Bunker.

Between 2003 & 2009 RAF Holmpton was restored by HIPPO (Holmpton Initiative Project Planning Office)which took on the original project. The site is currently maintained by the Joint Support Unit and the public exhibitions are managed by the Royal Air Force Holmpton Preservation Society.[1]

The site runs to about 36 acres (150,000 m2) and comprises a number of surface structures along with a secure 35,000 square feet (3,300 m2) command bunker which is about 100 feet (30 m) below ground.

The bunker was first built in 1951-3 and started life as an early warning station, part of the ROTOR program. In the late 1960s it became a Master Comprehensive Radar Station which eventually closed in 1974. The site was converted in the 1980s to form the new War Headquarters for RAF Support Command. With the ending of the Cold War this function ceased in 1991 and the site returned to training until 1995 when it was refurbished to become the first experimental headquarters of the new CCIS Electronic Warfare System. This function left the site in 2000--1. Throughout its years as a Radar Station and through the years of Support Command & CCIS, the site also contained an operations area for the Royal Observer Corps, and although the Corps was 'stood down' in 1992 with some ROC units remaining as NBC cells until the end of 1995, one last ROC unit remained at RAF Holmpton until December 1997 during advance planning of a new electronic warning system. This made RAF Holmpton the very last place in the UK where any members of the Royal Observer Corps ever served, and is a unique part of the site's history. After CCIS moved out in 2001 the site was maintained under contract until 2003 by AQUMEN Defence and during this time it was used for occasional training by the RAF Regiment & the TA. In 2003 management of the site passed to HIPPO (The Holmpton Initiative Project Planning Office) and plans soon got underway for a public exhibition which opened to visitors in 2004.

It is also worth mentioning that between 2003 & 2010 the site also housed the Defence Archive Unit which held plans and documents relating to cold war sites throughout the UK. In 2008 the majority of the archive was transferred to another organisation and is currently being digitised for publication on the web. The remainder of the Archive Unit then operated as a consulting facility but is due to close on 1 November 2010 (cutbacks) with any last historic documents being passed to the National Archive in Kew.

The Wiki article can be found here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Holmpton
And further nformation can be found at : http://www.rafholmpton.com/

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[petesstuff]

how deep is that ?.... would it have survived a direct ground burst ?.... fantastic vid ! thanks for sharing !!!

[Hanglands]

@petesstuff Hi, thanks for watching and commenting. This bunker, it was revealed after the cold war finished, was directly targeted - these bunkers would not and were not designed to survive a direct hit.

[ged150774]

Thanks for posting the video. It's always chilling to know that only 25years ago the threat of nuclear holocaust was a distinct reality, and that these places ever existed

[Hanglands]

@ged150774 Its amazing that within 15 to 20 years the threat has been totally forgotten - maybe thats a good thing, maybe not. My dad volunteered in a ROC bunker. We had neighbours coming around in the early 80s asking that "if in the event of nuclear war could my dad get them into 'his' bunker"... you just could not imagine that sort of thinking nowadays... the threat was real, the public perception was real. Thanks for watching and commenting.

[sgtcrabfat]

I used to be stationed at RAF Boulmer Northumberland, l think this is a similar design,(but that was 1980,,

[Hanglands]

@sgtcrabfat Yep, Correct. RAF Boulmer had/has an R3 bunker too.

[RetroGamerVX]

I've been in the bunker at RAF Neatishead, almost identical :o)

[AudieHolland]

@billyb4223

Please check out the excellent BBC docudrama "The War Game." Then watch its modern "sequel" "Threads."

All military and economic targets, like airbases and industrial cities would be hit. The only safe places are in Scotland and Ireland.

The reason they wanted to be able to continue operations after the first hit was they still wanted to strike back with the V-bomberforce. Even if everyone in the UK was dead, they wanted to kill as many Russian civilians as possible.

[billyb4223]

@AudieHolland It really depends where the commies decided to strike. I can imagine if, say, London and Manchester were hit, all operations above ground would be transfered below ground as a purely precautionary measure.

[AudieHolland]

What's really crazy is the fact that some people believed, in those times, that you could actually survive a nuclear war. Sure, you might survive the nuclear attacks, but would any of these facilities be sufficient to house its occupants for years or decades?

Even if there was no more fighting, the radiation on the surface would make anywhere above grounds uninhabitable.

Or the bunkers were just designed to keep command working untill the V-bomber force had delivered its nukes on Soviet Russia

[MrSlitskirts]

Great footage and place, I'm it's been restored and opened to the public.