THANKFULLY the threat has disappeared into history now, but there was a time, not so long ago, when Worcestershire was the prime UK target for a Russian nuclear attack. The bomb would have been dropped on Evesham, but that wouldn’t have mattered much, because most of the county, along with a good part of neighbouring Gloucestershire, would have been flattened, while radiation would have covered many hundreds of square miles more. The area was in the cross hairs of the Soviets because it contained the Government’s hidden communications centre in the event of nuclear war. The specific location was Wood Norton Hall, the Jacobean style mansion just outside the town, which had served in a similar role during the Second World War.
The sinking caused lasting political controversy.
Here s What You Need to Remember: The sinking of the
General Belgrano remains controversial, mostly in Argentina and on the British left. The Argentine Navy and the captain of the
Belgrano, however, have maintained that the sinking was legal. Focus on the
Belgrano’s end, however, has obscured the service that USS
Phoenix performed in the Pacific during World War II. She was the last of the survivors of Pearl Harbor to be lost to enemy action, even if the “enemy” turned out to be the Royal Navy.
Only one ship has ever been sunk in anger by a nuclear submarine. Designed to fight the Japanese, USS