Reviews

摘要

More than 50 years since the last operational Thor IRBMs in the UK were stood down (23 August 1963), there has been a recent - and altogether welcome - spate of books on the subject. While your reviewer's initial reaction was to question what might be new in this latest offering from Fonthill, the answer is assuredly 'a lot'. Goodchild has approached the subject from a completely different angle, producing a book which is in every way complementary to those that went before. The sub-title, Anatomy of a Weapons System, outlines well his approach. Here we have an analysis of all things Thor, accompanied by a series of drawings and diagrams featuring the launch emplacement, the launch mounting (missile to launcher), the transporter/erector vehicle, the shelter retraction mechanism, the launch control console, the missile itself and many, many more. If you want to know how the 20 RAF Thor sites were surveyed and built, and how the missile with its 1.44-megaton W-49 thermonuclear warhead was operated, this is the volume that tells you most, and maybe all, you might need to know. Sixteen pages of illustrations, all in black and white, are well reproduced and give a good idea of life at a Thor site 'somewhere in East Anglia'. This is a truly excellent volume. Any criticisms? Only that an index would have been useful and the fact that the Thor pictured on the cover has taken on a strange yellow (floodlit?) tinge.