A FORMER soldier will tell how Wroughton airfield was home to one of a nationwide network of secret bunkers.

The Science Museum, Wroughton, will be celebrating the role the airfield played during a lecture between 7pm and 9pm on Monday, May 9.

Tony Peach, a retired Observer Lieutenant of the Royal Observer Corps, will explain how his regiment was responsible for manning the network of 870 bunkers across post-war Britain one of which was on the site of the old airfield.

With the detonation of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the world entered a race to develop nuclear weapons.

In 1955 the Government decided to turn the observer posts, used during the two world wars as look-out posts for enemy aircraft, into bunkers below ground.

In the event of a nuclear strike these bunkers, manned by members of the Royal Observer Corps, would be used to measure the fallout and the exact position of the strike.

The measurements would be relayed to a regional Operations Room, which would report back to Strategic Air Command.

The lecture will tell of the history of the bunkers and the rules for the three-man team who would be dispatched if an attack was imminent.