The "V bombers" were the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Main Force. The three models of strategic bomber, known collectively as the V class, were the Vickers Valiant, which first flew in 1951 and entered service in 1955; the Avro Vulcan, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1956; and the Handley Page Victor, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1957. The V Bomber force reached its peak in June 1964 with 50 Valiants, 70 Vulcans and 39 Victors in service.
The Vickers Valiant was a British high-altitude jet bomber designed to carry nuclear weapons, and in the 1950s and 1960s was part of the Royal Air Force's "V bomber" strategic deterrent force. It was developed by Vickers-Armstrongs in response to Specification B.35/46 issued by the Air Ministry for a nuclear-armed jet-powered bomber. The Valiant was the first of the V bombers to become operational, and was followed by the Handley Page Victor and the Avro Vulcan. The Valiant is the only V bomber to have dropped live nuclear weapons.
Operation Grapple was a set of four series of British nuclear weapons tests of early atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs carried out in 1957 and 1958 at Malden Island and Kiritimati in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the Pacific Ocean as part of the British hydrogen bomb programme. Nine nuclear explosions were initiated, culminating in the United Kingdom becoming the third recognised possessor of thermonuclear weapons, and the restoration of the nuclear Special Relationship with the United States in the form of the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement.
RAF Bomber Command controlled the Royal Air Force's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. Along with the United States Army Air Forces, it played the central role in the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II. From 1942 onward, the British bombing campaign against Germany became less restrictive and increasingly targeted industrial sites and the civilian manpower base essential for German war production. In total 364,514 operational sorties were flown, 1,030,500 tons of bombs were dropped and 8,325 aircraft lost in action. Bomber Command crews also suffered a high casualty rate: 55,573 were killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew, a 44.4% death rate. A further 8,403 men were wounded in action, and 9,838 became prisoners of war.
The Avro Type 694 Lincoln is a British four-engined heavy bomber, which first flew on 9 June 1944. Developed from the Avro Lancaster, the first Lincoln variants were initially known as the Lancaster IV and V; these were renamed Lincoln I and II. It was the 2nd last piston-engined bomber operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF).
No. 1321 Bomber (Defence) Training Flight RAF was first formed at RAF Bottesford on 1 September 1944 as a fighter affiliation unit to train bomber crews from No. 5 Group Bomber Command how to defend their aircraft. The Flight was disbanded two months later on 1 November 1944 and absorbed by the units they trained before, 1668 Heavy Conversion Unit and 1669 Heavy Conversion Unit.
Blue Danube was the first operational British nuclear weapon. It also went by a variety of other names, including Smallboy, the Mk.1 Atom Bomb, Special Bomb and OR.1001, a reference to the Operational Requirement it was built to fill.
Royal Air Force Wittering or more simply RAF Wittering is a Royal Air Force station within the unitary authority area of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and the unitary authority area of North Northamptonshire. Although Stamford in Lincolnshire is the nearest town, the runways of RAF Wittering cross the boundary between Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.
No. 18 Squadron of the Royal Air Force operates the Boeing Chinook from RAF Odiham. Owing to its heritage as a bomber squadron, it is also known as No. 18 (B) Squadron.
No. 3 Group RAF of the Royal Air Force was an RAF group first active in 1918, again between 1923 and 1926, then as part of RAF Bomber Command from 1936 to 1967, and recently part of RAF Strike Command from 2000 until it disbanded on 1 April 2006.
In 1952, the United Kingdom became the third country to develop and test nuclear weapons, and is one of the five nuclear-weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Number 100 Squadron is a former Royal Air Force squadron. It last operated the British Aerospace Hawk T1, providing 'aggressor' aircraft for air combat training from RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire, UK.
No. 148 Squadron was a squadron of the Royal Air Force disbanded and re-established several times since the First World War, until its dissolution on 1 May 1965. During the Second World War, the squadron operated as a Special Duties squadron performing partisan supply missions and working closely with the Special Operations Executive for agent drop and pick-up operations.
Group Captain Kenneth Gilbert Hubbard was the pilot of an RAF Vickers Valiant bomber which dropped Britain's first live thermonuclear weapon (H-Bomb) in Operation Grapple in the Central Pacific Ocean in May 1957.
Number 76 Squadron was a squadron of the Royal Air Force. It was formed during World War I as a home defence fighter squadron and in its second incarnation during World War II flew as a bomber squadron, first as an operational training unit and later as an active bomber squadron. With the end of the war the squadron converted to the role of transport squadron, to be reactivated shortly in the bomber role during the 1950s. From 2007 to 2011, it was a training unit, equipped with the Short Tucano at RAF Linton-on-Ouse.
No. 58 Squadron was a squadron of the Royal Air Force. For much of its service history in the First and Second World Wars, it operated as a bomber squadron. In the later stages of the Second World War, it was part of Coastal Command and was engaged in anti-submarine patrols.
Project E was a joint project between the United States and the United Kingdom during the Cold War to provide nuclear weapons to the Royal Air Force (RAF) until sufficient British nuclear weapons became available. It was subsequently expanded to provide similar arrangements for the British Army of the Rhine. A maritime version of Project E known as Project N provided nuclear depth bombs used by the RAF Coastal Command.
The British hydrogen bomb programme was the ultimately successful British effort to develop hydrogen bombs between 1952 and 1958. During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys. At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, British prime minister Winston Churchill and United States president Franklin Roosevelt signed the Quebec Agreement, merging Tube Alloys into the American Manhattan Project, in which many of Britain's top scientists participated. The British government trusted that America would share nuclear technology, which it considered to be a joint discovery, but the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 ended technical cooperation. Fearing a resurgence of American isolationism, and the loss of Britain's great power status, the British government resumed its own development effort, which was codenamed "High Explosive Research".
Air Vice-Marshal Wilfrid Ewart Oulton, was an officer in the Royal Air Force. During the Second World War he was credited with sinking three German U-boats—U-463, U-663, and U-563—in one month while serving in RAF Coastal Command. He was in charge of the British nuclear tests of hydrogen bombs in the Pacific Ocean in Operation Grapple in 1957.
Squadron Leader Edwin James George "Ted" Flavell was the pilot of the No. 49 Squadron RAF Vickers Valiant bomber which dropped Britain's first live atomic bomb during Operation Buffalo at Maralinga, South Australia, on 11 October 1956.
United Kingdom 
Royal Air Force 
