Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker

Rather than move the boat, I decided to walk up the towpath to visit the nuclear bunker at Hack Green  I had hoped to be able to cut across a field to get there but that was not to be so a slightly longer (1.5 miles) walk but very pleasant, despite the strong winds.

And what a fascinating visit it turned out to be.

In 1941 Hack Green, a site previously used as a bombing decoy site for the main railway centre at Crewe was chosen to become RAF Hack Green, to protect the land between Birmingham and Liverpool from hostile attack.

Following World War II, a major examination of radar capability showed that our existing radar defence would be unable to cope with the threat posed by fast jet aircraft, let alone nuclear missiles. Any operational station needed to be protected against the new threat posed by nuclear weapons. 'Rotor' was the code name given to the Top Secret plan to replace the Chain Home and Ground Controlled Intercept radar network. The plan involved placing 1620 radar screens into massively constructed bunkers covering the UK. Hack Green was a semi-sunk  bunker known as a type R6. RAF Hack Green joined 12 Group protecting Britain against the perceived Soviet threat of both conventional and nuclear war. With new long range radar, Hack Green could give vital warning of the approach of hostile Russian bombers and enable the RAF to intercept with fighter aircraft or Bloodhound ground to air missiles. In accordance with the then held tripwire theory, that a number of nuclear bombers would always get through to some targets, early warning of impending attack enabled our Victor 'V-Force' nuclear bombers to become airborne and launch a retaliatory attack.

 As a Rotor station, Hack Green had a compliment of 18 officers, 26 NCO's and 224 corporals and aircraftsmen. 1958 brought yet another change in Hack Green's role when it became part of The United Kingdom Air Traffic Control System, one of 4 joint civil/military Air Traffic Control Units. Civil flying had by then totalled more than 133,000 hours per year and military flying 70,000 hours. The increasing use of airways and the advent of the Boeing 707 entering UK airspace at 35,000 ft. started to create a problem for the RAF The solution was to establish joint air corridor radar control centres. It was in this role providing a safe radar assisted crossing service for both military and civil aircraft, that Hack Green was to see its final service as an RAF station. The station was closed in 1966, it's role having been transferred to RAF Lindholme in south Yorkshire.

In 1976 the abandoned site at Hack Green was purchased from the MOD by the Home Office Emergency Planning Division to be converted into a protected seat of government for Home Defence Region 10:2. It was cloaked in considerable secrecy over a five year period. At a cost reputed to be some £32 million, the original Rotor radar bunker was converted into a vast underground complex containing its own generating plant, air conditioning and life support, nuclear fallout filter rooms, communications, emergency water supply and all the support services that would be required to enable the 135 civil servants and military personnel to survive a sustained nuclear attack.
 

There are a huge number of exhibits at the site and the displays and the whole experience has been really well done and remind one just how close we were to being MAD (mutually assured destruction).

 The HQ became operational in 1984, region 10s other bunker at Southport, Lancashire was unsatisfactory and prone to flooding so its duties were transferred to Hack Green, which became responsible for a huge area from Cheshire in the south to Cumbria in the north. The HQ would have been headed by a Regional Commissioner who would have been an appointed civil servant or minister. Under the Emergency Powers Act he would govern his defence region, and neighbouring regions if other RGHQ's had been destroyed. He would attempt to marshall the remaining resources to put the region back on its feet and prepare for the re-establishment of national government. He was assisted by a network of County War Headquarters and the United Kingdom Warning & Monitoring Organisation.

Well worth a visit if you are ever in the region.