Golfballs on the Moor: Building the Fylingdales Ballistic Missile Early Warning System

Abstract

The Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) at Fylingdales in Yorkshire was designed to provide early warning of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. Doubts about its technical performance (whether it would work reliably without causing false alarms) and about the utility of short warning times faded in the light of the organisational utility of Fylingdales to the RAF. The credibility of the V-bombers depended on their ability to scramble before being attacked on the ground, and Fylingdales was thus important in the argument used by the Air Force in attempting to retain the deterrent role for their bombers in opposition to supporters of Polaris. Subsequently, Fylingdales developed a major role in satellite tracking, a function which provided positive feedback on performance in a way not provided by the early warning role, which simply waited for an attack that did not come.