by James Jinks
It must be assumed that Russia will eventually develop atomic submarines. It is vital we should be able to master such a dangerous threat to our sea communications, but until we have ourselves produced atomic submarines, the counter-measures to them will remain largely conjectural.28
On 31 January 1950, the Controller of the Navy, Admiral Sir Michael Denny, and the Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Ralph Edwards, wrote to the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fraser of North Cape, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Hall, and recommended ‘that the Board should offer its support to the development of a nuclear powered submarine’ as it would give ‘the Navy a submarine of performance transcending that of any other type, at remarkably small additional cost to the country’.29 The Board approved and ‘recommended that every effort should be made to produce the nuclear submarine as soon as possible’.30 Cost was an important consideration. Not only did the nuclear submarine offer the only known means of obtaining prolonged submerged endurance, up to 100 days at 25 knots, but it was significantly cheaper when compared with HTP.31
Denny set up a Special Propulsion Sub-committee of the Ship Design Policy Committee, under the Director of Naval Construction to coordinate activities of Admiralty departments and Harwell, where the small naval/civil team was assessing the various reactor systems likely to be suitable for submarine propulsion. But little was achieved. The Admiralty suspected that Harwell was not very keen on developing a reactor for a submarine, and at the end of 1951 William Penney, the architect of the UK Atomic Weapons programme, had written that he could not think why Britain wanted a nuclear submarine. ‘What we have done,’ he wrote, ‘is to contract to build a power reactor in the most cramped of all ships, such that we lose the ship, the reactor, and the crew if the reactor fails when the ship is underwater as it must be most of its normal cruising.’32
This lack of enthusiasm can be explained by Penney’s overriding priority for nuclear weapons, for which fissile material was in short supply, as well as Harwell’s preoccupation with the UK civil nuclear programme. From the outset any research into nuclear-submarine propulsion had to tie in with Harwell’s civil nuclear research.33 At the time, Harwell was developing advanced gas-cooled reactors for the UK civil nuclear programme. One consequence of this work was that many of Harwell’s scientists and engineers showed little interest in conducting research into the highly enriched uranium fuel pressurized water reactors (PWR) that the United States Navy was intending to use in its first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, as they saw no future for PWR reactors in the UK civil power programme. Although Harwell could forecast a development programme for a PWR ‘with the least uncertainty of any of the new proposals’ and, given enough priority, a prototype reactor could be built by 1955–6, Harwell’s scientists and engineers concluded that the PWR was, at best, an ‘interim solution’ and was unsuitable for use in a submarine as it suffered from ‘the disadvantages of low temperature … and a development programme quite different from the remainder of the Ministry of Supply reactor programme’.34 Harwell concluded that a PWR-powered nuclear submarine was not a priority, ‘especially in view of our limited capacity to carry out special hull and machinery development as to justify a recommendation to the Ministry of Supply to take extraordinary steps to develop what is considered to be an interim solution to the submarine propulsion problem’.35
Instead Harwell concentrated its initial research efforts on a graphite-moderated, gas-cooled reactor that used helium for heat exchange. But by January 1952 detailed studies had shown that a submarine powered by such a reactor would have been far too large to be of any value to the Royal Navy.36 The research ceased and instead Harwell identified two liquid-metal-cooled reactors that were more acceptable in terms of size and technical superiority than the graphite-moderated, gas-cooled reactor and the PWR, and so would warrant further study and development. A revised research programme initially focused on assessing the characteristics of both types of liquid-cooled reactor was submitted to the Admiralty and approved by the Controller of the Navy, Vice-Admiral Sir Michael Denny, on 19 January 1952.37 However, resources were only sufficient to allow research into one of the liquid-metal-cooled reactors alongside the PWR.38
Harwell’s research programme was only possible because the Ministry of Supply had announced that it intended to build a plant capable of producing highly enriched fissile material that could be used to fuel the reactors. Although the government had allocated a small amount of fissile material to the nuclear-submarine programme, the vast majority of supplies were still allocated to the UK nuclear-weapons programme and the civil nuclear programme. Within a year it became apparent that a nuclear plant with the characteristics required would need a large quantity of highly enriched fuel. This could not be spared from the nuclear weapons programme and towards the end of 1952 the Chiefs of Staff effectively suspended the research programme.40
The Navy now had a choice: it could wait and hope that enough fissile material would become available in the near future to allow it to restart its nuclear-submarine project, or it could attempt to produce a submarine of similar capabilities using an alternative means of propulsion. Further research into HTP had shown that it was possible to produce it ‘at a price of about one fifth of the current price with a fair prospect of still further reduction’. Work on the HTP machinery sets for HMS Explorer and Excalibur was also nearly complete and the scientific and engineering research team at Barrow was facing the prospect of dispersal due to lack of work.41 With a stalled nuclear programme the Navy concluded that it was too much of a risk to lose the HTP research team. It once again reversed course and in September 1952 the Naval Staff asked the Flag Officer Submarines, Rear Admiral George Simpson, to prepare a proposal for an operational class of submarine using low-powered HTP machinery.42
Simpson’s paper, which was completed quickly in September 1952, argued that HTP machinery could deliver considerable underwater performance and provide the Royal Navy with a powerful platform, capable of fulfilling the Submarine Service’s primary operational role.43 He envisioned a submarine of around 1400 tons which was capable of staying submerged for extended periods, powered by specially silenced HTP machinery to allow long-range interceptions. Simpson was:
firmly of the opinion that Great Britain leads the world in the development of HTP machinery for submarines, and that there is in prospect in the near future an operational submarine of exceptional capabilities. Moreover I consider that we may have in our possession a design of a nearly ‘true-submarine’ many years before the Nuclear type can be completed.44
Meanwhile, the United States Navy, which had access to adequate supplies of fissile material, was continuing to construct USS Nautilus, which was powered by a pressurized water reactor, the same type of reactor that the scientists at Harwell had dismissed.
By 1953 the rapid advancement of the US nuclear programme, as well as the prospect of some highly enriched fuel being made available, persuaded the Admiralty to commit more resources to the UK nuclear programme. The case for a Royal Navy nuclear submarine was restated in a paper considered by the Defence Requirements Policy Committee in June of that year and the project was revived. By November, Harwell had abandoned research into the liquid-metal-cooled reactor after its investigations revealed that it required a large submarine of around 3000 tonnes and that there was little prospect of reducing its size unless it was redesigned in a way that used more highly enriched uranium, supplies of which were now not expected to be available until 1956. It was also ‘very vulnerable to underwater explosions’, which made it far too unsuitable for use in a submarine.45 This left the Naval Section at Harwell with the type of reactor it had dismissed three years earlier. It had independently reached the same conclusion as the United States Navy, that a pressurized water reactor would best meet the needs of a submarine propulsion plant, offering high power density and control stability, and above all the facility to be engineered into a small submarine hull.46
The Royal Navy finally had a nuclear-submarine programme, but it had taken four years to get to where the US Navy had been in 1951. The Admiralty had been quick to appreciate the potential of nuclear submarines but from 1946 until 1954 it struggled to complete anything but tentative research. While there was plenty of support for a nuclear-submarine programme its development was never afforded the same priority, and supplies of fissile material, as the British nuclear-weapons programme and the civil nuclear programme. The work into nuclear-submarine propulsion that was completed before 1954 was hampered by the requirement that research had to correspond with the civil reactor programme. Scientists and engineers at Harwell wasted vital years investigating different reactor designs, all of which were eventually dismissed as unsuitable for use in a submarine. Perhaps Harwell’s biggest mistake was the early dismissal of the pressurized water reactor, the type the US Navy had selected to power Nautilus. Collectively these decisions cost the Royal Navy precious time, something that is immediately apparent if the British programme between 1950 and 1954 is compared with the US Navy’s over the same period.
One other important feature that the early British nuclear-submarine programme lacked was an individual who was prepared to champion and drive through its development. This changed in 1955 with the appointment of the new First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Mountbatten of Burma. The younger son of Prince Louis of Battenberg, and great-grandson of Queen Victoria, Mountbatten had begun his long and distinguished naval career in 1913, joining the Royal Naval College Osborne as a cadet. After a series of naval appointments, and wartime service, with spells as Chief of Combined Operations and Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia, in 1947 Mountbatten was appointed Viceroy of India, with the task of transferring sovereignty from the British crown to independent rule. Following independence Mountbatten resumed his naval career and returned to service at sea. He climbed quickly through the ranks, with appointments as Fourth Sea Lord in 1950, responsible for supplies and transport, and CinC of the Mediterranean Fleet between 1952 and 1955, followed in 1955 by the post of First Sea Lord, the pinnacle of the naval profession. Mountbatten was determined to move the Navy into the nuclear age. He championed the nuclear programme, ensured it was given ‘decisive new impetus’ and sought to enlist the assistance of the United States Navy.48
SECURING AMERICAN HELP
The United States Navy and the Royal Navy had always enjoyed a particularly close relationship, and it was at its tightest between the two submarine services. The 1950s represented a high point in this relationship. Both services were cooperating in the highly secret surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations directed against the Soviet Union and on the complex problems of anti-submarine warfare too. In 1955, this culminated in the appointment of a Royal Navy (Submarine) Exchange Officer, Lieutenant Commander A. M. B. Buxton, to the United States Navy’s Submarine Development Group Two (SubDevGruTWO) at the Submarine Base in New London, Groton, Connecticut. Working as an operational analyst alongside USN submarines, SubDevGruTWO was given, by the USN Chief of Naval Operations, ‘the sole task of solving the problem of using submarines to detect and destroy enemy submarines’. All other operations of any nature, even training, were subordinated to this mission. A Royal Navy officer has been a part of the US organization and its successors since that date.
Despite the close collaboration in the Manhattan Project and the wartime agreements at Quebec in August 1943 and Hyde Park in September 1944 that promised continued post-war cooperation in the atomic energy field, when the Second World War ended, the United States Congress passed the McMahon Act which prohibited the passage of classified atomic energy information to all foreign countries, including Britain.49 Thereafter, ironclad atomic energy legislation ensured that US officials and companies were severely limited as to what they could show to and discuss with their British counterparts. Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s successive British governments pushed the United States for renewed nuclear collaboration by demonstrating the success of the independent UK nuclear-weapons programme.50 Following the Soviet nuclear test in August 1953, President Eisenhower told Congress that the McMahon Act was a ‘terrible piece of legislation’51 that undermined the United States’ relationship with its NATO partners. He set about a lengthy process that would eventually result in the restoration of nuclear collaboration between the United Kingdom and the United States.
The Admiralty attempted to enlist American help with its nuclear programme in early 1954.52 Several high-level approaches to the US Navy were nevertheless unsuccessful, not because the US Navy was unwilling to assist, but because they could not ‘go ahead without the approval of the Atomic Energy Commission’.53 On 20 June 1955, Congress ratified a US/UK Military Atomic Cooperation Agreement that stated, inter alia, that ‘the USA may exchange with the UK such atomic information as the USA considers necessary for the development of the UK’s defence plans …’ However, in the wake of the exposure of Soviet spies Klaus Fuchs and Donald Maclean, Congressional opposition and US interagency disputes made the negotiation of further agreements on nuclear propulsion difficult to achieve. The US Sub-committee on Agreements for Co-operation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy regarded nuclear reactors as a new ‘secret’, and during hearings on the two Anglo-American agreements, Congressional members insisted that the US preserve its technological lead in the field. Behind the scenes, the US Defense Department asked the US Attorney General for a confidential opinion on whether the AEC could legally transfer information on submarine reactors to other states. British officials remained optimistic that ‘an inter-Service approach to the U.S. Navy would bear fruit’.54 But without approval from the US Atomic Energy Commission the US Navy was unable to talk.
At that time, anyone interested in the US nuclear-submarine programme knew of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the head of the US Naval Reactor Division. Known as the ‘father of the nuclear navy’, due to his personal role in championing nuclear power in the United States Navy and driving through the design and construction of USS Nautilus, Rickover was unique in that although he was a naval officer who held a commission in the US Bureau of Ships, he also held an appointment with the civilian US Atomic Energy Commission. A complicated, difficult, sensitive and aggressive character, he was bitterly unpopular with many naval officers because of the dictatorial methods he used to get things done. But he enjoyed strong support from Congress, which effectively enabled him to do what he liked. For three decades Rickover personally interviewed and approved every Commanding Officer in the US nuclear-submarine programme. He was so powerful that when a young Ensign from Georgia who once worked in Rickover’s office became President of the United States and Rickover’s Commander-in-Chief, Jimmy Carter admitted that he ‘never really felt like his boss’.55 Carter and four other Presidents would intervene to keep Rickover on active duty twenty years beyond the standard retirement date in the US Navy.
Rickover had spent two years of the Second World War in the United Kingdom as naval attaché, studying battle-damaged Royal Navy warships.56 He knew the British and the Royal Navy well and was willing to
help the Royal Navy develop a nuclear-submarine programme. In early June 1955, he told a member of the British Joint Services Mission in Washington that ‘It would be a pity if we traversed the same ground, it would be good if we could have an agreed joint program and finally that if we had a firm submarine project of our own he was certain that we would be given the information on Nautilus provided the approach was made through Service channels and not through the A.E.C.’57 When Rear Admiral Fawkes, the Flag Officer Submarines, bumped into Rickover during a visit to Pearl Harbor, he again stressed how much he could save the UK in both time and money with nuclear ‘know how’ and repeated that any request for information should be made through military, rather than commercial, channels.58 The naval team at Harwell welcomed the prospect of collaboration with the United States but, in June 1955, Captain Harrison Smith warned that ‘Unless detailed information on Nautilus is obtained it is quite clear that we shall have to go through all the difficulties and set-backs which the Americans encountered during development of the submarine project.’59
In late 1955, in order to obtain the necessary information the Admiralty attempted to bring about a meeting between Rickover and Mountbatten. John Coote, fresh from his pioneering intelligence-gathering operation in HMS Totem, was ordered to prepare a brief about Rickover for Mountbatten. Coote attempted to meet Rickover and got as far as having coffee in the Admiral’s outer office, where the young Lieutenant Carter quickly shuffled top-secret papers out of Coote’s sight. When he was eventually introduced to Rickover the Admiral refused to even look up from his desk. Coote’s second encounter with Rickover occurred at Honolulu Airport, while both men waited for a small US Navy aircraft which had been sent to bring Rickover back from the first holiday he had taken in seven years. ‘Well,’ Rickover said, ‘after all this is the second busiest airport in the world after O’Hare in Chicago.’ Mentioning Heathrow as a possible contender for the dubious honour of busiest airport, Coote ‘promptly got both barrels at full caliber, complete with statistics and all their sources’. The ensuing ride to San Francisco was in total silence.60
