About The Royal Observer Corps
The Royal Observer Corps (ROC) was a civil defence organisation operating in the United Kingdom between 29 October 1925 and 31 December 1995, when the Corps' civilian volunteers were stood down. (ROC headquarters staff at RAF Bentley Priory stood down on 31 March 1996).
Composed mainly of civilian spare-time volunteers, ROC personnel wore a Royal Air Force style uniform and latterly came under the administrative control of RAF Strike Command and the operational control of the Home Office.
Civilian volunteers were trained and administered by a small cadre of professional full-time officers under the command of the Commandant Royal Observer Corps; latterly a serving RAF Air Commodore.
In all but a few instances the posts were built to a standard design consisting of an access shaft, toilet/store and monitoring room. The posts were excavated to a depth of between ten and twenty five feet, a monocoque reinforced concrete building was cast and bitumen tanked (or waterproofed), before the whole structure was covered by a compacted soil mound. Conditions in these posts were cramped, cold, and in some cases damp. In the event of a nuclear strike the post would need to be manned for up to 21 Days continuously.
Up until the 1950s the role of the Royal Observer Corps was concerned with the spotting and identification of attacking enemy aircraft.
As the Cold War intesified the Corps’ role changed to that of monitoring of blast and fall-out in the event of a nuclear strike.
In order to undertake this role between 1958 and 1968 a countrywide building programme resulted in a network of 1,563 underground monitoring posts, approximately eight square miles apart, distributed throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland being built, usually at the site of a former aircraft observation post, at an estimated cost of almost £5,000 each.
The posts were arranged in clusters under the command of a Master Post which in turn reported to a Group Headquarters (in this case 20 Group, York).
The posts were manned on a rota system by ten volunteer Observers, three at a time, under the command of a Chief Observer and a Leading Observer.
In 1968 the Corps was re-organised and half of the posts closed. On 30th September 1991 the remaining 800 or so posts finally stood down and were abandoned.