Launch of the Berlin Airlift: RAF Operation Plainfare
On 26 June 1948 the RAF launched Operation Plainfare, helping sustain West Berlin by air in one of…
26 June 2026 · 3 min read 22 July
On This Day, 1940: On 22 July 1940, an RAF Blenheim used airborne interception radar to shoot down a Dornier Do 17…
Read the entry →Cold War · 1945 – 1991
Cold War
From the Berlin Airlift to the Falklands, from V-bombers on four-minute alert to the Tornado over the Iraqi desert, four decades of nuclear deterrence, technological transformation and the occasional hot war in unexpected places.
5 Operations
23 Aircraft
0 People
8 Squadrons
The Cold War RAF was defined above all by the nuclear deterrent. From 1955, the V-bombers — Valiant, Victor and Vulcan — stood at four-minute readiness, their crews trained to respond to a Soviet attack within minutes. For thirty years, the threat of mutual assured destruction was the RAF's primary strategic purpose, even as it continued to fight conventional wars in Malaya, Korea, Suez, Aden and the Falklands.
Technology transformed the service beyond recognition. The piston engine gave way to the jet. Supersonic flight became routine. Guided missiles replaced guns and iron bombs as the primary weapons. The aircraft that entered service at the end of the Cold War — the Tornado, the Nimrod, the Buccaneer — were as different from the Spitfire as the Spitfire had been from the Sopwith Camel.
"The bomber will always get through." — Stanley Baldwin, 1932
The Falklands campaign of 1982 tested the Cold War RAF in a conventional conflict it had not anticipated. Long-range bombing missions, air defence over contested territory, maritime patrol and close support — in ten weeks, the service demonstrated a flexibility that the theorists of nuclear deterrence had sometimes doubted it retained. It was a timely reminder that the RAF remained a fighting service, not merely a nuclear delivery system.
Operations · 5 operations
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Cold War
Operation Grapple
How the RAF supported Operation Grapple through V-bomber delivery, cloud sampling and Pacific infrastructure during Britain’s H-bomb tests.
Cold War
Operation Corporate
How the RAF supported Operation Corporate through Vulcan raids, Victor tanker missions and later tactical air operations in…
Cold War
Operation Plainfare
How the RAF’s Operation Plainfare helped sustain West Berlin during the Soviet blockade, flying food, coal and vital…
Cold War
Operation Musketeer
How the RAF supported Operation Musketeer through transport flying, strike operations and airborne assault during the Suez Crisis.
From the Archive — Cold War
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