RAF Greenham Common - Cold War - 501st Tactical Missile Wing

501st Tactical Missile Wing

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. compared to 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 USAF BGM-109G Gryphon Ground Launched Cruise Missile or GLCMs (based on the US Navy BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile), as well as 108 US Army 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. When in June 1980 it was announced that RAF Greenham Common was to become the first site for cruise missiles, there was an outcry from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Once more a massive new construction was undertaken as the GAMA (GLCM Alert and Maintenance Area) site was built in the southwest corner of the base. GAMA was a maximum security QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) area with 6 large above ground shelters in which fully operational cruise missiles were stored.

These shelters were specially designed and constructed to protect the GLCMs and crews against nuclear and conventional strikes. They were about 10 m high, with a reinforced 2 m thick concrete ceiling. Below was a massive titanium plate, 3 m of sand and a reinforced concrete plate. The shelters were completely covered with tons of clay. Each shelter was equipped with three hydraulic nuclear blast proof doors at both ends to assure a quick entry or exit. They were designed to withstand the blast of an air-bursting nuclear explosion above the base or a direct hit from a 2,500 lb (1,100 kg) conventional bomb.

Each shelter contained 2 LCC Launch Control Centers and 4 TEL transporter erector launchers. Each unit was mobile and supposed to leave the base in convoys to their secret preset dispersal sites. This would happen within minutes after the alert and the movement was via the local roads through the surrounding villages.

The first squadron of the 501st Tactical Missile Wing received its weapons in November 1983; they were flown onto the base by C-5As.

A series of meetings held during August and September 1986 culminated in a summit between United States President Ronald Reagan and the General Secretary of the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík, Iceland, on 11 October 1986. To the surprise of both men's advisers, the two agreed in principle to removing INF systems from Europe and to equal global limits of 100 INF missile warheads.

The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987, which led to the removal of all nuclear missiles from the base. The last GLCMs at RAF Greenham Common were removed in March 1991, and the 501st TMW inactivated on 4 June 1991.

The base's last operational commander, Group Captain Andrew Brookes, RAF went on to become an aviation author.