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Royal Observer Corps at RAF Blakehill

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In 1957, the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) was established under Home Office control. It was intended that the UKWMO would provide both civil and military authorities in the UK with essential information during a nuclear attack, with the ROC providing primary data on the position and magnitude of atomic weapons detonated during any such attack. This data would be used by the UKWMO, in conjunction with weather information provided by the Meteorological Office, to produce a forecast of radioactive fallout. Fallout would be monitored as and where it occurred, with its actual location and strength mapped using data obtained from instrumentation at ROC posts. Such information when combined with ROCMet, (data concerning actual wind speed and direction obtained from cluster Master Posts equipped with wind anemometers and other basic meteorological instruments), would permit the dissemination of accurate forecasts predicting the distribution and strength of nuclear fallout.   Map source National Archives.

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