This is my first official post - I grew up in North Lincolnshire so I am aware the area is full of old military sites from the 2nd World War & the Cold war, before I moved away from the area I worked on RAF Kirton Lindsey for a while & went to primary school at RAF Hemswell - my Dad was also in the Royal Observer Corps until is disbanded
so many of the local sites are familiar to me. However, on reading up on the Cold War recently I became aware of the Thor missile Project (Project Emily) from the late 1950's - much of this was happening just a few miles from my parents home so I just had to take a look before the site disappears into the overgrowth / gets torn down.
I headed out to old RAF Caistor to have a mooch around and take a few photos before all signs of the launch site has gone forever. Thor missiles were part of the joint venture agreed in 1958 between UK & USA to have long range ballistic missiles (with a nuclear warhead) positioned in 4 sites across England, ready to launch within 15 minutes.
RAF Caistor / Ludford / were controlled from RAF Hemswell. Each site had 3 launch pads & they were fairly cheaply built using quite a few temporary buildings, each missile was stored within a sliding canopy. The Project was disbanded around 5 years later & replaced by the V Bombers (Vulcans in tis case). And the site was emptied and sold off to farmers.
The pics of the Thor site show the blast barriers, all 3 missile launch pads were still standing, each had a concrete trench for the oxygen & kerosene tanks, 3 theodolite stands and other hard standings / connecting roads, lots of the old concrete tracks remain.
I headed out to old RAF Caistor to have a mooch around and take a few photos before all signs of the launch site has gone forever. Thor missiles were part of the joint venture agreed in 1958 between UK & USA to have long range ballistic missiles (with a nuclear warhead) positioned in 4 sites across England, ready to launch within 15 minutes.
RAF Caistor / Ludford / were controlled from RAF Hemswell. Each site had 3 launch pads & they were fairly cheaply built using quite a few temporary buildings, each missile was stored within a sliding canopy. The Project was disbanded around 5 years later & replaced by the V Bombers (Vulcans in tis case). And the site was emptied and sold off to farmers.
The pics of the Thor site show the blast barriers, all 3 missile launch pads were still standing, each had a concrete trench for the oxygen & kerosene tanks, 3 theodolite stands and other hard standings / connecting roads, lots of the old concrete tracks remain.
