Home-Army Fifth Operational Corps
The Home-Army Fifth Operational Corps — or the Fifth Operational Corps for short — was a military organisation which defended the Earth from alien threats in the late 20th century. The organisation's acronym represented the word 'Fifth' with the Roman numeral 'V', spelling HAVOC. (PROSE: The Enfolded Time) While primarily British Army, they also drew officers from the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. (PROSE: The Grandfather Infestation)
The organisation was a successor to the previous four Operational Corps, (PROSE: Mutually Assured Domination) LONGBOW, (PROSE: Moon Blink) and ICMG (PROSE: The Dogs of War) and a precursor to UNIT. (PROSE: The Enfolded Time) Ian Gilmore called the classified Home-Army Operational Corps as "the UK's best kept secret", due to their wide-ranging executive powers: while he didn't want to say they acted above the law, he said Winston Churchill had "made a lot of, shall we say, progressive use of them." (PROSE: The Dogs of War)
Organisation
Senior staff and communications & monitoring were located at Dolerite Base, under Edinburgh Castle. 1st Battalion were stationed at Stirling Castle, Scotland, while 2nd Battalion had no permanent base so they could be a more mobile response unit. A mobile HQ was set up in a Hercules transport plane. (PROSE: The Grandfather Infestation)
Officers were trained at the Joint Warfare Establishment. (PROSE: The Cult of the Grinning Man, The Grandfather Infestation)
History
After ICMG was destroyed in 1966, several important people in the British government wanted to create another alien defence organisation to replace it. (PROSE: The Dogs of War)
The numerous alien attacks in early 1969 gave Major General Oliver Hamilton and Ian Gilmore the leverage needed to convince the government to create the Fifth Operational Corps. (PROSE: Mutually Assured Domination)
It was funded in large by industrialist Peyton Bryden, who wished to benefit from the advanced alien tech so that Bryden Industries could continue to compete against International Electromatics, so its budget would be 'off the books'. To further keep the group secret, the initial soldiers were often the rotten apples of other regiments so nobody would wonder where they were going. The MOD liaison to the Corps was Peter Grant, who had a niece that was into 'spy stuff'. The HQ of the Corps was located in Dolerite Base with their troops stationed at Stirling Castle and in Imber. Alien technology was confiscated from the Vault and moved to Dolerite. (PROSE: Moon Blink, The Showstoppers, The Grandfather Infestation)
The Fifth was initially commanded by Colonel Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, who promoted to brigadier shortly before officially taking command of Dolerite Base in Edinburgh. The Head of Science & Research was Doctor Anne Travers. (PROSE: The Showstoppers)
In 1973, Lethbridge-Stewart left the Fifth Operational Corps to create UNIT. He was ordered to pretend that Corps had never existed. (PROSE: The Enfolded Time)
The Corps continued, working on some of UNIT's more secretive operations. After Lethbridge-Stewart took over UNIT UK, Walter Douglas was promoted to brigadier and resumed command. (PROSE: Ashes of the Inferno)
It continued to secretly protect the UK in 1990 but had now dropped the "Home Army" label. William Bishop was now second-in-command. (PROSE: The Enfolded Time)
