Welcome to one of the nations most secret defence sites. Hack Green has played a central role in the defence of Britain for almost sixty years. As you approach Hack Green over the picturesque farmland and rolling Cheshire countryside, it’s hard to imagine a more peaceful location, but it was not always like this!
History
Over 50 years ago the freedom you now enjoy was in peril, World War II was being lost and Britain was struggling for its very survival. In the Air Ministry in bomb-blitzed London officials were looking for sites to locate the new Radio Detection and Direction Finding (RDF) equipment or radar as it came to be known. A chain of radar stations were already strung out along the eastern and southern coasts to face the enemy bombers and fighters threatening Britain. This system was known as ‘Chain Home’ and was supplemented at the outbreak of war by the ‘Chain Home Low’ system which was able to detect enemy aircraft flying at low altitude.
Cold War Role
For over 40 years the world had been free of global conflict and enjoyed a period of relative peace.
The vigilance shown by the NATO powers, in which Hack Green played its full part, had been effective in deterring the Soviet Union from military expansion. During the 1950s and 60s two developments took place which produced the nuclear world in which we live today: Thermo-nuclear weapons and inter-continental ballistic missiles. The British government took the threat to its people seriously, the Home Secretary the Rt. Hon. Leon Brittan Q.C. M.P. said,
“The first duty of the state is to secure the survival of its citizens, the government that ignores that task has forfeited its claim to the respect of the people and has abandoned the most basic of its responsibilities.”
