Britain on the brink - Jim Wilson

At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Britain was Americas first-line defence, a vulnerable, but unsinkable aircraft carrier on which the United States based the Strategic Air Commands first-strike elements of their Americas nuclear deterrent. The Strategic Air Commands UK bases and the RAFs V-Force were ordered to the highest state of readiness at any time during the Cold War. Nuclear weapons were loaded, some nuclear-armed aircraft went on round-the-clock airborne patrol, others were held at cockpit readiness. But the British public was largely unaware that, as tensions rose thousands of miles away, the UK itself was under imminent threat of armageddon.