Taken in 1988 or 1989 at RAF Woodbridge.
This is the Non-Nuclear Munition Storage Area at RAF Woodbridge. Those berms are the backside of storage bunkers where munitions were stored. Apparently, long before I was stationed here, they had had a small tactical nuclear storage area whose boundaries (not shown) were easily discernible in my time by the decaying remnants of doubled fences, razor wire, a concrete guard bunker, and a tower.
Anyway, it was a source of great hilarity / headache that the local anti-nuclear groups refused to believe nuclear weapons were no longer present. They would occasionally try to break in to show that security was inadequate for (the non-existent) nuclear weapons. Occasionally, they would succeed–because there weren’t nuclear weapons and so one airman–often on foot–provided security for the whole area, and nothing was line of sight because of the ubiquitous berms. It would take either a long time or a lot of noise to bust into one of the bunkers and one would probably gain access to nothing more than small arms ammo or bomblets for A-10s. So the security risk was not particularly great (compared to tactical nuke storage.)
I preferred the “ghost hunters” that regularly came around over the anti-nuclear crowd, the former were a little more willing to accept evidence than the latter.
Tags: England, military, nuke storage, photographs, photos, pictures, RAF Woodbridge, storage bunkers, United Kingdom, US Air Force
By B Gourley in England, Military, photographs, Photos, pictures on June 6, 2013.
