For Peace!

The largest US military presence in Britain is at RAF Lakenheath. Over 5000 US soldiers are based there and the US Air Force’s only F-15 fighter jet base in Europe. Protests have been maintained at Lakenheath, since the base was founded. The base hosted US nuclear weapons from 1954 until 2008. In 1956, a USAF nuclear bomber crashed on a training exercise. It burst into flames and the fire engulfed a nuclear weapons store. It was a near miss of a detonation which would have turned Suffolk into a dead land. In 2023, with a fresh anti-Russian posture from NATO, the weapons returned and so did the protestors with Lakenheath Alliance For Peace.

Unlike the Greenham Camp, Molesworth People's Peace Camp included both women and men. The Christian (particularly Quaker) presence at the Camp was also an important element. In 1984, the protesters occupied part of the airstrip and established the Rainbow Village there which was evicted the following year in an extensive police and military operation. Class War magazine published a report on the eviction in 1985 - it was irreverent and highly critical of tactics of peaceful resistance. This was in line with the profile of Class War which appealed to the punk, Anarchist and pacifist movement of the time and promoted physical force resistance.