War Plan UK

Compendium of brief extracts from declassified documents and articles relating to civil defence against weapons of mass destruction. This is orientated towards civil defence today, not towards historians of past eras like the Cold War, so they should carefully check the original documents before citing them, because we have made some editorial omissions and minor corrections to some documents, to ensure up to date accuracy, e.g. the latest DS02 dosimetry yields for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosions. The UK defence readiness for a war with Russia was reviewed on the Prime Minister's orders in a Cabinet Office Home Defence Committee meeting on 26 November 1962, following the October 1962 Cuban missiles crisis between Russia and America, in UK National Archives document CAB 134/2021. This Cuban crisis was the Cold War equivalent to the September 1938 Munich crisis, which had a similar influence in finally forcing the British media and the government to focus on the threat of war and to make the utmost efforts to plan to avert unnecessary risks: "Review of Home Preparedness in the Light of the Cuba Crisis and of Exercise Felstead. The Chairman said that, in the light of the Cuba crisis in the previous month, the Prime Minister had asked for an assurance that Government War Book planning was sufficiently flexible to enable us to respond quickly and appropriately both to a threat of war not immediately involving the United Kingdom or NATO, and to a sudden emergency in which we might have not more than two or three days' warning of the outbreak of war. In considering these questions, the Committee would wish to take into account the lessons learned in Exercise Felstead ... and certain proposals put forward by the Home Office ..." - CAB 134/2021, 27 November 1962 (Scanned image of this document: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XZzzFrhcwHo/VB_kQ12McuI/AAAAAAAAEsU/oh-IHXrDdMA/s1600/cab_134_2021%2B27%2BNovember%2B1962%2Breview%2Bof%2BUK%2BGovernment%2Bwar%2Breadiness%2Bafter%2Bthe%2BCuban%2Bmissiles%2Bcrisis.jpg ) Discussion at: http://glasstone.blogspot.co.uk/