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FromtheArchive
Winter
2013
Robert Westmoreland (1962-1968)
sent in this photo. He writes: “I had a most
enjoyable time in the RAF section of the
CCF at school. I only have one photo of
some of us, a group of we cadets during a
stay at RAF Binbrook (then a Lightning
interceptor base) in 1968, my final year at
MTS.
I expect that the RAF CCF cadets now
wear the standard ‘No 2’ Service Dress,
a lightweight and practical uniform. In
my time and I suppose for a few years
thereafter, the heavier wool Second World
War-and-after Battle Dress was worn, we
RAF section guys in RAF blue/grey and
the Army section in the khaki version,
both with webbing belt and gaiters. We
also used and marched with the Second
World War vintage .303 Lee Enfield short
magazine rifle, a fairly heavy beast with
quite a kick when fired.
My time at MTS was in the depths
of the Cold War and I remember well,
for example, the concern, to say the
least, that all we pupils felt and talked
about during the Cuban missile crisis,
especially knowing well that we were so
close to a primary target, the Northwood
underground control centre. That scare
happened when I was in the 3rd Form,
barely a month after entering Merchant
Taylors’.
When the photo was taken in 1968,
Binbrook in Lincolnshire was a major
front-line fighter base tasked with the
interception of incoming Soviet Air
Force bombers and on our visit that both
brought home the serious nature of the
stand-off and made our week or so there
all the more interesting. For example, they
took us down into the bunker where they
serviced the heat-seeking missiles that
armed the aircraft. One missile, clamped
on its test rig with nose cone removed,
was demonstrated to us. The engineer
switched on a soldering iron near it and
immediately it reacted, moving its fins as
it would to manoeuvre towards a target.
We saw or heard many 5 Squadron
scrambles during our time there as their
aircraft roared off day and night with
cones of flame exiting the jet engines to
intercept the frequent incoming Soviet
Bear and Bison bombers sent over the
North Cape and down the North Sea to
probe and test our defences. A couple of
the aircraft were always on QRA (Quick
Reaction Alert) by the end of the runway,
rather than in hangars or on the main
hard-standing areas, with fully kitted pilots
waiting in small huts alongside them
ready to get airborne immediately, with
further aircraft on 15 minute reaction time.
The English Electric (BAC from 1968)
Lightning was blisteringly fast, going from
‘brakes off’ on the runway to 40,000 ft. in
under 2½ minutes. It was our first Mach
2 (1,300 mph) fighter, a speed seldom
exceeded even these days (although in its
time, the extraordinary Concorde did so
daily as it cruised routinely at 1,320+ mph).
Nowadays, the older aircraft types
displayed at RAF base entrances are
fibreglass replicas, the real things being
far too rare and valuable to leave out in
the open but in those days, they were
originals, such as the Spitfire in our
Binbrook picture.”
