by James Jinks
Command and Control Arrangements
421. Andrew Priest, ‘The President, the “Theologians” and the Europeans: The Johnson Administration and NATO Nuclear Sharing’, The International History Review, 33:2, pp. 257–75. 422. TNA/CAB/134/3120, PN(67) 4th Meeting, Minutes of a Meeting of the PN Committee, 5 December 1967. 423. TNA/DEFE/24/295, Polaris – Assignment to NATO, 21 October 1966. 424. TNA/DEFE/13/547, Control and Operation of the UK Polaris Force, 23 October 1967. 425. TNA/DEFE/13/296, Jellicoe to Thorneycroft, 30 October 1963; the command was redesignated C-in-C Fleet (CINCFLEET) in 1971. 426. However, as the requirements of the maintenance period had priority CINCWF was authorized to extend the notice and recue the number of missiles carried when essential for maintenance; TNA/DEFE/13/547, Control and Operation of the UK Polaris Force, 23 October 1967. 427. Hennessy, Secret State, pp. 153–310. 428. TNA/DEFE/13/700, Healey to Wilson, 21 March 1967; many of these are still restricted; TNA/DEFE/223, Nuclear retaliation procedure: correspondence and briefs, 1964–1967; TNA/DEFE/224, Nuclear retaliation procedure: correspondence and briefs, 1967; TNA/DEFE/223, Nuclear retaliation procedure: correspondence and briefs, 1967–1968. 429. TNA/DEFE/13/547, Control and Operation of the UK Polaris Force, 23 October 1967; TNA/DEFE/11/437, A. Brooke-Turner to J. H. Gibbon, 27 February 1967. 430. TNA/DEFE/13/700, Wilson to Healey, 10 April 1967. 431. TNA/DEFE/13/547, Control and Operation of the UK Polaris Force, 23 October 1967. 432. Ibid. 433. TNA/PREM/13/2571, Halls to Hodges, 6 September 1967. 434. TNA/PREM/13/2571, Note for the Record, 29 June 1968. 435. TNA/PREM/13/2571, Procedure for routine daily tests from No. 10 Downing Street of the closed circuit television link with Polaris HQ, June 1968. 436. TNA/DEFE/13/547, Draft Note from the Chairman Nuclear Retaliation Procedure Committee to the Secretary of State of the Cabinet, Committee on Nuclear Retaliation Procedures Political Control over the Release of British Nuclear Weapons, u/d. 437. TNA/PREM/13/2571, Burrough to Halls, 2 May 1968; Stoddart, Losing an Empire, p. 127. 438. TNA/CAB/175/19, Government War Book (69) I, Appendix Z, 2 July 1969; GWB (72), Appendix Z, 24 July 1972; for more information on the Nuclear Deputies see Hennessy, Secret State, pp. 258–309. When the Polaris force went to sea Harold Wilson’s Nuclear Deputies were the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and from March 1968 the Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, and the Defence Secretary, Denis Healey. From June 1970 onwards Edward Heath appointed three Nuclear Deputies, the Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling, the Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and the Secretary of State for Defence, Lord Carrington. 439. TNA/CAB/175/19, Government War Book (69) I, Appendix Z, 2 July 1969; GWB (72), Appendix Z, 24 July 1972. 440. Ibid. 441. TNA/DEFE/13/547, Control and Operation of the UK Polaris Force, 23 October 1967. 442. TNA/DEFE/11/437, Handwritten note, 10 April 1967. 443. The July 1969 Appendix Z clearly shows that if the AOC-in-C, at RAF Strike Command, was unable to contact the PM or the Nuclear Deputies, he was first to confer with the US Commander ‘to ascertain what instructions he has received and co-ordinate the release of air delivered nuclear weapons under joint control’. If this proved impossible then the War Book was clear, ‘in the last resort’ the AOC-in-C was able to authorize ‘on his own responsibility, retaliation by all means at his disposal’. Why this was remained a mystery until the declassification of a brief on UK Nuclear Release Procedures for Michael Foot, in the event of a Labour victory in 1983, which explained that ‘The reason for this exception is that the survival of the tactical bomber force can only be achieved by ordering it into the air, after which its ability to retaliate is limited in time by its relatively short endurance. The invulnerability of Polaris submarines makes it unnecessary to delegate equivalent authority to the Commander-in-Chief, Fleet.’ TNA/CAB/196/124, Armstrong to Prime Minister, Nuclear Release Procedures and Related Matters, June 1983. 444. Hennessy, Secret State, pp. 310–60. 445. TNA/CAB/196/124, Armstrong to a possible incoming Labour Prime Minister, Nuclear Release Procedures and Related Matters, June 1983. 446. TNA/CAB/21/6048, Atlantic Nuclear Force, 1965, The Mechanism of Command and Control: Permissive Action Link, Memorandum by the Ministry of Defence, August 1965. 447. Private information. 448. IWM/20513, Interview with Rear Admiral Whetstone, 13 June 2000. 449. ITN Archive, Britain’s Polaris Deterrent, 1967 http://www.channel4.com/news/trident-nuclear-deterrent-review-polaris-itn-archive. 450. TNA/ADM/1/30970, I. B. C. Macleod, Personnel Working or Associated with Nuclear Weapons – Stability Surveillance, 12 July 1968. 451. Kenneth Young, ‘A Most Special Relationship: The Origins of Anglo-American Nuclear Strike Planning’,‘ Journal of Cold War Studies, 9/2 (2007), pp. 5–31. 452. TNA/DEFE/13/953, Polaris Submarines – Operating Cycles (Memorandum by VCNS), 22 April 1970. 453. TNA/DEFE/13/350, Annex A to COS 75/66, NATO Targeting of the Polaris Force, 22 June 1966. 454. TNA/DEFE/24/295, ACNS to CT345, Polaris Targeting Committee, 8 November 1967; a special Polaris Targeting Committee was set up in November 1967 presumably to identify the targets. 455. TNA/DEFE/19/190, UK Strategic Nuclear Force – Short Term Working Party, 3 June 1971. 456. TNA/DEFE/13/296, Polaris Submarines – Size of UK Force – Appendix to COS.3200/12/12/63. 457. Ibid. 458. IWM/20513, Interview with Rear Admiral Whetstone, 13 June 2000.
On Board a ‘Resolution’ Class Submarine
459. Henry, ‘A CO’s Story’, in Moore, Impact of Polaris, p. 249. 460. Ibid. 461. Henry Ellis, ‘Providing the People’, in Moore, Impact of Polaris, p. 226. 462. IWM/20513, Interview with Rear Admiral Whetstone, 13 June 2000. 463. Ibid. 464. Daily Telegraph Magazine, no. 165, 1 December 1967. 465. TNA/DEFE/13/548, Begg to Healey, Publicity for the Polaris Force, 15 May 1968. 466. J. J. Tall and Paul Kemp, HM Submarines in Camera, 1901–1996 (Blitz Editions, 1998), p. 220. 467. Watson, Commander-in-Chief, p. 70. 468. Henry, ‘A CO’s Story’, in Moore, Impact of Polaris, p. 242. 469. John Winton, ‘Have Polaris Will Travel’, Naval Review, Vol. 60, No. 3, July 1972, pp. 233–36. 470. HMS Renown Commissioning Book. 471. Daily Telegraph Magazine, no. 165, 1 December 1967. 472. Henry, ‘A CO’s Story’, in Moore, Impact of Polaris, p. 250. 473. IWM/20513, Interview with Rear Admiral Whetstone, 13 June 2000. 474. IWM/16570, Interview with Geoffrey Jaques, 10 June 1996. 475. Peter Hennessy and Richard Knight, ‘HMS Apocalypse: Deep in the Atlantic, a submarine waits on alert with nuclear missiles that would end the world’, Daily Mail, 30 November 2008. 476. Winton, ‘Have Polaris Will Travel’, pp. 233–34. 477. Interview with Captain Richard Husk, 15 November 2011. 478. IWM/16570, Interview with Geoffrey Jaques, 10 June 1996. 479. Winton, ‘Have Polaris Will Travel’, p. 234. 480. Arthur Escreet, ‘A Crew Member’s Story’, in Moore, Impact of Polaris, pp. 252–3. 481. IWM/16570, Interview with Geoffrey Jaques, 10 June 1996. 482. TNA/DEFE/13/548, Sixth Joint Annual Report (1968). 483. Captain R. W. Garson, ‘It Looks Different from Where You Sit’, Naval Review, Vol. 85, No. 1, January 1997, pp. 46–7. According to Daniel, fifty seconds after the first missile was launched, shore control at Cape Kennedy reported that it had had to destroy the missile because it was heading towards New York. There is no evidence in the files to support his recollection; Daniel, End of an Era, p. 194. 484. Garson, ‘It Looks Different from Where You Sit’, pp. 46–7. 485. Ibid. 486. See Robb, ‘Antelope, Poseidon or a Hybrid’, pp. 797–817.
5 MIXING IT WITH THE OPPOSITION: THE COLD WAR IN THE 1960S
1. Interview with Richard Sharpe, 19 November 2013. 2. TNA/DEFE/25/46, VCNS to PUS MOD, 19 November 1964. 3. Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1967, Cmnd 3203 (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1967). 4. TNA/DEFE/69/726, The SSN Threat, 1970.
The Cold War at Sea
5. TNA/CAB/158/39, JIC(60)6(Final), The Employment of the Soviet Navy and Soviet Air Forces in the Maritime Role at the Outbreak of Global War – 1960–64, 24 February, 1960. 6. TNA/ADM/1/27680, The Need to Extend Surveillance Operations, March 1960. 7. TNA/CAB/158/39, JIC(60)6(Final), 24 February 1960. 8. TNA/CAB/158/39, JIC(60)25(Final), 6 February 1961. 9. TNA/CAB/131/25, D(61)8th Meeting, 31 May 1961. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. TNA/DEFE/24/46, Nuclear Submarines Presentation, Operational Remarks by V.C.N.S., 1962. 13. TNA/ADM/
1/28093, Hezlet to Begg, 7 August 1962. 14. TNA/ADM/1/28093, Begg to Hezlet, 15 August 1962. 15. Ibid.
The Cuban Missile Crisis
16. See Owen Cote Jr, The Third Battle: Innovation in the U.S. Navy’s Silent Cold War Struggle with Soviet Submarines (Naval War College Newport Papers, 2003); Joseph F. Bouchard, Command in Crisis: Four Case Studies (Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 117. 17. Dino Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis (Random House, 1991), p. 363. 18. Peter Haydon, The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: Canadian Involvement Reconsidered (Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, 1993), p. 137. 19. Ibid. 20. Interview with Richard Sharpe, 19 November 2013.
Surveillance
21. TNA/DEFE/13/255, Thorneycroft to Carrington, Special Intelligence Operations, 21 February 1963. 22. Ibid. 23. TNA/DEFE/13/255, De Zulueta to Vause, 28 March 1963. 24. TNA/ADM/1/29149, CO HMS Onslaught to FOSNI, Operation Bargold – Patrol Report, 9 July 1963. 25. TNA/ADM/1/29149, Memo by D.N.I., 30 December 1963. 26. TNA/ADM/1/29149, Memo by Director of Undersea Warfare, 8 January 1964. 27. TNA/ADM/1/29149, FOSNI to Secretary of the Admiralty, 28 September 1963. 28. TNA/ADM/1/29149, Memo by D.N.I., 30 December 1963. 29. TNA/PREM/11/4721, Trend to Douglas-Home, 17 March 1964. 30. Ibid. 31. TNA/PREM/11/4721, First Lord to Douglas-Home, 31 March 1964. 32. TNA/PREM/11/4723, Jellicoe to Butler, 9 October 1964. 33. Sam Fry, Fruitful Rewarding Years: A Submariner’s Story (The Memoir Club, 2006), p. 98. 34. TNA/PREM/11/4723, Wright to Hockaday, 7 September 1964. 35. Ibid. 36. TNA/DEFE/13/255, Hockaday to de Zulueta, 15 February 1963. 37. IWM/30290, Interview with John Coward, 20 November 2007. 38. TNA/DEFE/13/405, Thomson to Healey, 6 January 1965. 39. MOD Archive. 40. Ibid. 41. TNA/DEFE/24/20, Peduzie to Wright, 6 December 1965. 42. TNA/DEFE/13/406, Unknown to Nairne, 26 November 1965. 43. TNA/DEFE/13/406, Thomson to Wilson, 26 November 1965. 44. TNA/DEFE/13/499, Note on Recent Soviet Submarine Incidents, 7 February 1967. 45. MOD Archive. 46. Ibid. 47. TNA/DEFE/13/499, Nairne to Palliser, 6 February 1967; TNA/PREM/13/1382, DEFENCE. Report of suspected Soviet submarine off Londonderry. 48. Ibid. 49. TNA/DEFE/24/13, Tait, 21 April 1969. 50. TNA/DEFE/24/13, Tait, Annex A, Operation ‘Alfa’, 21 April 1969. 51. Ibid.
Indonesian Confrontation
52. TNA/DEFE/13/405, Thomson to Wilson, 29 January 1965. 53. TNA/DEFE/13/405, Thomson to Wilson, 5 May 1965. 54. Richard Channon, ‘A Close Call’, in Friends of the Submarine Museum, All Round Look: Year Book 2014/2015 (Royal Navy Submarine Museum, 2014), p. 25. 55. Patrick Middleton, Admiral Clanky Entertains (Matador, 2010), p. 121. 56. Channon, ‘A Close Call’, p. 25. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. Daily Telegraph, Obituary, Captain John Moore, 23 August 2010. 60. Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (Michael Joseph, 1989), p. 289. 61. Fry, Fruitful Rewarding Years, p. 105.
Transformation
62. Anthony Gorst, ‘CVA-01’, in Richard Harding (ed.), The Royal Navy 1930–2000: Innovation and Defence (Frank Cass, 2005), pp. 170–92. 63. TNA/DEFE/69/481, Mallalieu to Mayhew, 14 September 1965. 64. David Owen, Time to Declare (Penguin, 1992), p. 147. 65. Middleton, Admiral Clanky Entertains, p. 132. 66. Interview with Richard Heaslip, 18 December 2013. 67. Middleton, Admiral Clanky Entertains, p. 149. 68. R.G.H., ‘The Nuclear Attack Submarine’, Naval Review, Vol. LV, No. 1, January 1967, pp. 22–6. 69. Duncan Redford, The Submarine: A Cultural History from the Great War to Nuclear Combat (IB Tauris, 2013), p. 169. 70. R.G.H., ‘The Nuclear Attack Submarine’. 71. Ibid. 72. TNA/DEFE/24/46, Healey to PUS MOD, 10 November 1964. 73. TNA/DEFE/69/535, DS4 Memo, 8 March 1965. 74. P. L. Vosper and A. J. Brown, ‘Pumpjet Propulsion – A Splendid British Achievement’, Journal of Naval Engineering, 36(2) (1996). 75. Robert Bud and Philip Gummett, Cold War, Hot Science: Applied Research in Britain’s Defence Laboratories, 1945–1990 (Science Museum, 2002), p. 164. 76. David K. Brown and George Moore, Rebuilding the Royal Navy: Warship Design since 1945 (Chatham Publishing, 2003), pp. 127–8. 77. TNA/DEFE/24/238, Future Fleet Working Party, Report, Vol. I, Para. 15, 167; Vol. II, Annex 4, Para. 7; TNA/DEFE/24/149, Options for Meeting the Concept of Operations – the Fleet in 1975’, 22 July 1966. 78. TNA/DEFE/13/949, Begg to Healey, 13 October 1967. 79. Ibid. 80. TNA/DEFE/13/949, Begg to Healey, The Roles and Capabilities of the Fleet Submarine, 13 October 1967. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid. 84. Exocet surface-to-surface missiles were deployed during the 1970s in some ships not fitted with Sea Dart. 85. TNA/DEFE/13/949, Begg to Healey, The Roles and Capabilities of the Fleet Submarine, 13 October 1967. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid. 88. TNA/DEFE/13/949, Healey to CA Studies (A. H. Cottrell), SSN Programme, 20 October 1967. 89. TNA/DEFE/13/949, Begg to Healey, The Roles and Capabilities of the Fleet Submarine, 13 October 1967; TNA/DEFE/13/949, Cottrell to Healey, SSN Programme, 31 October 1967. 90. TNA/DEFE/13/949, SSN Working Party, Interim Report, December 1967. 91. Ibid. 92. Ibid. 93. TNA/DEFE/24/236, SSNs. The Case for the Present Construction Programme, 1 October 1968. 94. Jack Daniel, The End of an Era: The Memoirs of a Naval Constructor (Periscope Publishing, 2003), p. 191; TNA/PREM/15/584, Dame Irene Ward, MP, to Ted Heath, 6 August 1970. 95. North West Evening Mail, 21 February 1969. 96. Kenneth Warren, Steel, Ships and Men: Cammell Laird, 1824–1993 (Liverpool University Press, 1998), p. 291. 97. Ibid., p. 290. 98. Toru Takamatsu and Ken Warren, ‘A Comparison of Cammell Laird and Hitachi Zosen as Shipbuilders’, in Takeshi Abe, Douglas Farnie, David Jeremy et al. (eds.), Region and Strategy in Britain and Japan: Business in Lancashire and Kansai 1890–1990 (Routledge, 1999), p. 220. 99. Warren, Steel, Ships and Men, p. 291. 100. For a more general account of the problems with the British shipbuilding industry in the post-war years see Geoffrey Owen, From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry since the Second World War (HarperCollins, 1999), pp. 90–115. 101. Warren, Steel, Ships and Men, p. 291. 102. TNA/DEFE/13/953, Talk for Minister (E), ‘Nuclear Submarine Programme’, 10 May 1967. 103. Ibid. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid. 106. Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Blind Man’s Buff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage (Random House, 1999), p. 44. 107. TNA/DEFE/13/949, HMS Dreadnought – First Commission 1963–1968. 108. TNA/DEFE/13/949, Wilson to Healey, 17 October 1966. 109. TNA/PREM/13/798, Healey to Wilson, 25 October 1968. 110. TNA/DEFE/13/949, HMS Dreadnought – First Commission 1963–1968. 111. Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 16 November 1966, Vol. 736, Col. 105W. 112. TNA/DEFE/13/953, Recent Problems in HMS Dreadnought and Their Repercussions on the Refits of Other SSNs and SSBNs’, 18 February 1970. 113. TNA/PREM/13/2936, Zuckerman to Heath, 12 December 1969. 114. ‘Service Experience in “Valiant” and “Warspite” ’, Nuclear Submarine SSN-07, a Symposium, Wednesday, 28 February 1968, at Vickers Limited Shipbuilding Group, Barrow-in-Furness. 115. Daily Telegraph, ‘Atom-sub’s torpedo “missed sitting target” ’, 17 July 1973. 116. TNA/ADM/256/153, Flag Officer Submarines Paper on Submarine Weapons in the 1970s, 5 February 1969; Michael Pitkeathly and David Wixon, Submarine Courageous, Cold War Warrior: The Life and Times of a Nuclear Submarine (The HMS Courageous Society, 2010), p. 39. 117. Fry, Fruitful Rewarding Years, pp. 104–5. 118. TNA/ADM/256/153, Flag Officer Submarines Paper on Submarine Weapons in the 1970s, 5 February 1969. 119. Ibid. 120. TNA/ADM/189/237, Long Range Submarine and A/S Torpedoes, Captain G. O. Symonds, 1958. 121. Ibid. 122. TNA/ADM/256/153, Pollock to Controller of the Navy, 5 February 1969. 123. Ibid. 124. TNA/ADM/256/153, Flag Office Submarines, Paper on Submarine Weapons in the 1970s, 5 February 1969. 125. TNA/DEFE/24/398, Flag Officer Submarines’ ‘Haul Down’ Report, 10 November 1969. 126. Ibid. 127. TNA/DEFE/24/389, E42, undated.
