The United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) was a British civilian organisation operating between 1957 and 1992 to provide UK military and civilian authorities, in the event of war, with data about nuclear explosions and forecasts of subsequent fallout profiles across the country.
The UKWMO was established and funded by the Home Office but in the main utilised Royal Observer Corps (ROC) premises and its uniformed volunteer personnel as the fieldforce. The only time the combined organisations were on high alert in the Cold War was during Cuban Missile Crisis in October and November 1962. The organisation was wound up and disbanded in November 1992 following a review prompted by the government's Options for Change report.
Its emblem-of-arms was a pair of classic hunting horns crossing each other, pointed upwards, with the enscrolled motto "Sound An Alarm", a title also used for two contemporary public information films. Sparetime members of the UKWMO warning teams were awarded the Civil Defence Medal for fifteen years continuous years service, with a bar for each subsequent twelve years.
Read more about United Kingdom Warning And Monitoring Organisation: The Task, Civil Defence Medal, Disbanded
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