New exhibition at Yorkshire Air Museum evokes memories of Cold War and fear of nuclear destruction
The Doomsday Clock, a symbol that represents the likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, has been ticking since 1947 when it was "set" at seven minutes to midnight.In January 2023 humanity was reckoned to be closest ever to catastrophe, just 90 seconds.Despite that people aren't as fearful now as they were during the Cold War - although arguably the situation now is far less stable, with nine countries possessing nuclear weapons.Historian Dr Ian Horwood, consultant to Yorkshire Air Museum, which is holding a new exhibition called Minutes to Midnight, said: "In the Cold War it was relatively stable, you just had two superpowers and they kind of cancel each other out."One of the things that might be a revelation in the material we provided for the displays in the exhibition was that there actually was a serious imbalance between the Soviet Union and the West in terms of a strong nuclear capability.
"The Soviet Union was much, much weaker until the end of the 1960s. Nuclear parity wasn't achieved until about 1969."In the 70s you had a period of detente when it seemed like the west and the east were coming together, and then you have a renewed Cold War from 1979 onwards when things got very tense again."Brilliant, beautiful but deadly aircraft were designed to provide the UK’s nuclear deterrent which can be seen at Elvington.Freshly repainted and forming the centrepiece of the exhibition is the RAF Buccaneer XV 168, built in the 1960s by the Blackburn aircraft company at Brough in East Yorkshire. The aircraft would have been armed with the WE 177 nuclear bomb, to strike targets within the Eastern Bloc.Others include the Handley Page Victor, which was one of the first RAF aircraft to carry nuclear weapons, and a Panavia Tornado, which was the last.Dr Horwood said: "Military aircraft tend to be the cutting edge of technology and during the Cold War there was an arms race between the powers who were trying to develop equipment which was technically superior to their enemies to give them more capabilities."There were some fairly remarkable evocative shapes. The Valiant and Vulcan - the shapes are just beautiful. The extraordinary thing about them was the most beautiful of the machines were designed to do the most awful things."In the museum’s cinema, visitors can watch a series of eyewitness accounts of the Cold War ranging from former military personnel to someone who grew up behind the Iron Curtain.
One of the contributors, magazine writer Bob Fischer who grew up saying a prayer every night "for there to be no nuclear war" vividly recalls the "absolute fear" of war which permeated news and popular culture, from the apocalyptic TV drama Threads to an episode of Only Fools and Horses in which Del buys a nuclear fallout shelter.
