RAF Greenham Common

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Greenham Common in 2005. The control tower can be seen in the distance.

Greenham Common is a piece of land in the south of England near the town of Newbury, Berkshire. During World War II it was taken over by the military to be an airfield, serving as a base for airborne troops. Subsequently the airfield was best known both for the Royal International Air Tattoo held there, and for the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp held outside its gates. It was returned to civilian use in 1997.

1 Pre-military history
2 World War II
3 The Cold War
4 Return to Civilian Use
5 See also
6 External links
7 References

[edit] Pre-military history

Greenham Common was a piece of common land. It was used for troop movements during the English Civil War and in the nineteenth century.

[edit] World War II

The common was taken over by the military and converted to an airbase, called RAF Greenham Common, during World War II. It was used for glider assembly and as a base by the US 101st Airborne Division, and airborne elements of the Battle of Normandy were launched from there.

[edit] The Cold War

In the post World War II years the United States Strategic Air Command was based at three major airfields in eastern England: RAF Lakenheath, RAF Marham and RAF Sculthorpe. The increasing tension of the Cold War led to a re-evaluation of these deployments and a move further west, behind RAF fighter forces, to RAF Greenham Common, RAF Brize Norton, RAF Upper Heyford and RAF Fairford.

Of these airfields Greenham Common was perhaps the least developed. Beginning in 1951, SAC spent over £2m building a new 10,000ft runway and massive new hardstandings. Two 1,000ft overshoots were added to the runway in 1958. To the south west of the runway a new munitions area was built. Eight 1,000,000 gallon underground fuel tanks were also constructed at the base.

[edit] Alleged nuclear accident

On February 28, 1958 a B-47E of the 310th Bomb Wing developed problems shortly after takeoff and jettisoned its two 1,700 gallon external fuel tanks. They missed their designated safe impact area and one hit a hangar whilst the other struck the ground 65 feet behind a parked B-47E. The parked B-47E, which was fuelled with a pilot onboard and carrying a 1.1 megaton (4.6 PJ) B28 thermonuclear free fall bomb, was engulfed by flames. The conflagration took sixteen hours and over a million gallons of water to extinguish, partly because of the magnesium alloys used in the aircraft. Although two men were killed and eight injured, the US and UK governments kept the accident secret — as late as 1985, the British Government claimed that a taxiing aircraft had struck a parked one and that no fire was involved.

Two scientists, F.H. Cripps and A. Stimson, who both worked for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston alleged in a secret 1961 report, released by the CND in 1996, that the fire detonated the high explosives in the nuclear weapon and plutonium and uranium oxides were spread over a wide area — foliage up to 8 miles (13 km) away was contaminated with uranium-235 - and that they had discovered high concentrations of radioactive contamination around the air base.^[1]

However, a radiological survey commisioned in 1997 by Newbury District Council and Basingstoke and Deane found no evidence of a nuclear accident at Greenham Common. The 7-month long survey was carried out by the Geosciences Advisory Unit of Southampton University and combined a helicopter-mounted gamma ray detector survey with a ground-based survey. The team analysed nearly 600 samples taken from soil, lake sediment, borehole water, house dust, runway tarmac and concrete looking for uranium and plutonium isotopes. No evidence of an accident involving nuclear weapons damage was found at the former airforce base, although the ground survery did detect some low level uranium contamination around the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston thought to be derived from that facility, and the helicoptor survey found some anomolies around Harwell Laboratory. ^[2]

[edit] Departure of SAC

The Strategic Air Command (SAC) departed Greenham common on June 30, 1964. From 1967 the base saw occasional use, for example in the NATO Reforger exercises. From 1973 the base became the home of the International Air Tattoo, a large scale international military airshow, since relocated to RAF Fairford, approximately 40 miles away. In 1977 the USAF announced plans to reactivate the base to house KC-135 aerial refueling tankers due to a lack of capacity at the KC-135's main UK base, RAF Mildenhall. This lead to widespread local opposition and in 1978 the British Defence Secretary vetoed the plan.

[edit] Cruise deployment

The Soviet deployment of the SS-20 missile from 1975 caused major concern in the NATO alliance. The longer range, greater accuracy, mobility and striking power of the new missile was perceived to alter the security of Western Europe. It was feared that the Soviet Union could launch a nuclear strike against Western Europe with a reduced threat of nuclear retaliation (i.e. than an attack on the continental United States). After discussions, NATO agreed to a two part strategy:

To pursue arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union to reduce their and the American INF arsenals
To deploy in Europe from 1983 up to 464 Ground Launched Cruise Missile or GLCMs, as well as 108 Pershing II ballistic missiles. (See also SLCM and ALCM)

The UK's share of this total was 160 missiles, 96 based at Greenham Common with four spares and 64 at RAF Molesworth. At Greenham Common six hardened shelters were built and operated by the US 501st Tactical Missile Wing, on the site of the old munitions area. Each shelter held two launch control centres (LCC), four mobile launchers and one or two recovery vehicles. The mobile launchers were called TELs ("Transporter erector launcher"). To launch the missiles, the launch convoys would leave the base to pre-determined dispersal sites (travelling via local roads and through nearby villages and towns), increasing the survivability compared to fixed sites. Sixteen missiles were held at permanent readiness in the QRA shelter.

[edit] Greenham Common Peace Camp

From 1981 "women's peace camps" were established in protest at the deployment of the cruise missiles. They came to be known as "The Greenham Women" or "peace women" and their 19 year protest drew worldwide media and public attention, often by cutting through the fences. The last cruise missile was flown back to the United States in 1991, but the women remained at the site until September 2000 to ensure base was closed and the land return to the public. It is interesting to note that whilst the protesters were cutting fences at Greenham, RAF Welford (which is not far from Greenham) was being used to store equipment and allegedly also some of the missiles, as it had the ability to fly it in and out as well as possibly using road or rail links.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which called for the removal of all INF systems from Europe, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a massive draw down in United States nuclear forces in Europe - particularly Cruise missiles.

[edit] Return to Civilian Use

The Greenham Common missile shelters.

On September 11, 1992, the USAF returned Greenham Common airbase to the RAF and on February 9, 1993, the Greenham Common airbase was declared surplus to requirements by the Secretary of State for Defence.

On 24 March 1997 the land was purchased by the Greenham Common Trust for £7 million and returned to a variety of civilian uses. A business park, named New Greenham Park, is sited on one portion of the former airbase and as of 2002 housed over 150 businesses. Greenham Common Trust manages its investment in the business park to produce a sustainable income that is distributed to local charities, environmental and community projects. Considerable efforts have been made to restore large areas of the Common to something approaching its former natural state.

A major part of this has been the removal of the runway (except for one central section) and hardstandings which were used as fill for construction of the Newbury bypass.

The cruise missile storage silos have been fenced off and designated an Ancient Monument.

The Common is looked after by the Greenham and Crookham Conservation Volunteers. These volunteers try to protect this 278.61 hectare (688.45 acre) Site of Special Scientific Interest^[3] and try to preserve the outstanding beauty of the common.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Aerial Photo From Multimap.Com

[edit] References

^ The Distribution of Uranium 235 and Plutonium 239 around the United States Airforce base at Greenham Common, July 1961 by F H Cripps & A Stimson, AWRE,Aldermaston
^ Greenham Common given 'all-clear'-leaving childhood leukaemia clusters a mystery, Southampton University in-house newsletter New Reporter Vol 14, No 12, 10 March 1997
^ Greenham and Crookham Commons. English Nature. Retrieved on 2006-09-25.

Coordinates: 51°22′43″N, 1°16′56″W

	United States Air Force in the United Kingdom v • d • e
ACTIVE BASES:	RAF Alconbury (USAFE) • RAF Croughton (USAFE) • RAF Fairford (USAFE) • RAF Feltwell (USAFE) • RAF Lakenheath (SAC/USAFE) • RAF Menwith Hill (USAFE) • RAF Mildenhall (SAC/USAFE/AMC) • RAF Molesworth (SAC/USAFE) • RAF Upwood (USAFE) • RAF Welford (USAFE)
INACTIVE BASES:	RAF Bentwaters (USAFE) • RAF Burtonwood (AFMC) • RAF Chelveston (SAC/USAFE) • RAF Chicksands (USAFSS) • RAF Greenham Common (SAC/USAFE) • RAF Manston (USAFE) • RAF Sculthorpe (SAC) • RAF Shepherds Grove (USAFE) • RAF Upper Heyford (SAC/USAFE) • RAF Wethersfield (USAFE) • RAF Woodbridge (USAFE)
ACTIVE ORGANIZATIONS:	United States Air Forces in Europe • HQ Air Command Europe • 48th Fighter Wing (USAFE) • 100th Air Refueling Wing (USAFE) • 501st Combat Support Wing (USAFE)
PAST ORGANIZATIONS:	Third Air Force • Sixteenth Air Force