Most Secret: The Hidden History of Orford Ness

by Paddy Heazell

Orford Ness was so secret a place that most people have never even heard of it. The role it played in inventing and testing weapons over the course of the twentieth century was far more significant and much longer than that of Bletchley Park. Nestled on a remote part of the Suffolk coast, Orford Ness operated for over eighty years as a highly classified research and testing site for the British military, the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment and, at one point, even the US Department of Defence. The work conducted here by some of the greatest ‘boffins’ of past generations played a crucial role in winning the three great wars of the twentieth the First, Second and the Cold. Hosting dangerous early night-flying and parachute testing during the First World War, the ingenious radar trials by Watson Watt and his team in the 1930s, through to the testing of nuclear bombs and the top-secret UK-US COBRA MIST project, the ‘Ness’ has been at the forefront of military technology from 1913 to the 1990s. Now a unique National Trust property and National Nature Reserve, its secrets have remained buried until recently. This book reveals an incredible history, rich with ingenuity, intrigue and typical British inventiveness.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

479 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 16, 2010

Reviews

[Thomas McCall · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of information is packed into this book but it's deployment, context and general narrative could have been much better. The book is a bit of a slog and I'd caution that if the reader wants a digestible and understandable outline of what went on in the Ness, one cannot do better than the information boards in the small National Trust Museum and at the Black Beacon.

[Tony Stacey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting in parts, but a better writer would known to cut the duller sections. (The long Atomic bomb section is a good example)

[Chas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The great mystery about Orford Ness, Bawdsey and all the other secret research units in Suffolk during WWII is that nobody ever deliberately attacked or sabotaged them. Flooding, explosions, trials and tribulations, there were many, but any well co-ordinated bombing raids or major security leaks or spy scandals, there were none, or so it would appear. I have attended a lecture by the author of this wonderful book and he really knows his subject. Orford is bleak and eroding slowly away but it is a very inspiring place for the hardier type who has even a passing interest in wildlife, the Cold War, shingle, lighthouses, concrete structures and redundant technology at the upper expenditure level.
Read and then board the NT landing craft, you will not regret it!

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story but the telling is a bit tedious, and the British English words sometimes made it haarder for me to understand. But learning the history of the Ness, and the development of radar, aircraft armory, and nuclear weapons on this lonely piece of shingle brought me a lot of new information, and for that I am grateful.