An Introduction......Project Emily 1958 - 1963

Between August 1958 and August 1963 there were up to 60 Thor missiles based in the east of England.

Each missile carried a 1.44MT thermonuclear warhead (the Hiroshima bomb was 0.015MT).

There were four groups of five locations with three missiles at each location.

Each missile was (theoretically) at 15 minutes readiness to launch.



The four 'Wing HQs" each with four satellite 'Flights' were operational in the following order:

• RAF Feltwell
• RAF Hemswell
• RAF Driffield
• RAF North Luffenham

Throughout the website the following initials are used:

• MRBM = Medium Range Ballistic Missile
• IRBM  = Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile
• ICBM = Inter Continental Ballistic Missile

I would like to thank John Boyes and Jim Wilson for their very informative books on Project Emily (links open in a new window).