by James Jinks
Had the fifth submarine been completed, it would have commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Royal Sovereign. For years, there was a long-running joke within the Ministry of Defence that the Navy intended to call the fifth submarine HMS Reconsideration because of the ‘long and torturous’ discussions that surrounded its fate.369
COMPLETING THE PROGRAMME
By the summer of 1965 the Navy had ‘broken the back of the procurement of equipment’.370 Up until the end of 1964 construction of all four submarines remained on schedule. But by the time the keel of the third submarine, HMS Repulse, was laid down in August 1965, the programme at Vickers was around ten months behind schedule.371 Vickers had struggled to manage the workload induced by running both the SSN and SSBN construction programmes in parallel and, by December 1965, Mackenzie and the Controller of the Navy were involved in a ‘constant battle’ with Vickers to get the shipyard to speed up progress.372 As the submarines and their weapons systems were to constitute the principal element of Britain’s nuclear deterrent, the operational availability and reliability of each was of paramount importance. This demanded unparalleled attention to the construction of the hulls and the installation and performance of equipment and systems. For the first time in history on a shipbuilding contract there were formal standards of quality control and the standard of equipment reliability was degrees higher than anything which the MOD had asked for in the past.373 The shipyards had to control quality ‘to an unprecedented degree’ and independent quality control organisations, reporting directly to top management, had to be set up to assure the MOD.374
The first submarine, HMS Resolution, was launched on 15 September 1966. By May 1967, testing and tuning had been carried out in less time than the Americans had taken on their own submarines and on 22 June 1967, only two months later than originally planned, Resolution left Barrow for months of ‘intense, trying and tiring’ sea trials off the west coast of Scotland, testing equipment, conducting exercises, carrying out dummy fire drills and action stations.375 The Royal Navy followed US Navy practice and assigned two crews to each submarine to ensure they remained operational for as long as possible. The Flag Officer Submarines, Vice Admiral Sir Horace Law, discarded the terminology the US Navy used to identify its own Polaris crews, ‘Gold crew’ and ‘Blue crew’, and instead adopted a more traditional British means of identifying them: ‘Port’ and ‘Starboard’.376 The question of who should command HMS Resolution, the first Royal Navy vessel where command was equally shared between two COs, had been solved in October 1965, with the appointment of two men of equal rank, the extremely ambitious and confident Commander Michael Henry, thirty-seven, who assumed command of the Port crew, and the calm and collected Commander Kenneth Frewer, thirty-five, who assumed command of the Starboard crew.377
The Submarine Service took its new responsibility very seriously, naming the Polaris squadron after one of its most decorated and battle hardened Second World War submarine squadrons, the 10th Submarine Flotilla, which had operated from Malta and Maddalena between 1940 and 1944.378 But the rest of the Navy continued to struggle with the impact of Polaris. There was a general feeling that the Polaris programme was taking valuable resources away from the conventional fleet. Antipathy was still present when Resolution returned to Barrow in August 1967 after successful Contractors’ Sea Trials. There was, according to Henry, ‘a deafening silence’. No one said anything, good or bad. Only the Polaris Staff Officer to CINCFLEET congratulated the crew on their achievements.379 When the Commander-in-Chief Western Fleet, Admiral Sir John Bush, visited Resolution shortly before the submarine departed on patrol he told the entire crew that as far as he was concerned Resolution was just another ship in the Fleet, ‘no different to one of the minesweepers’.380 ‘Perhaps he meant well,’ Henry later recalled, ‘perhaps consciously or unconsciously he was expressing the Fleet’s view.’381 Listening to Bush, the mood of the men who had dedicated themselves to getting Resolution ready for sea was, understandably, ‘mutinous’.382
It was also to a degree a reflection of the government’s determination to avoid publicizing Polaris in any way. Privately, Labour ministers were happy to give ‘their support wholeheartedly, and even enthusiastically’, to the Polaris programme.383 But in public they ‘remained sensitive to anything to do with’ it ‘and were reluctant to encourage much in the way of publicity for … what it was achieving’.384 Healey even attempted to delay the Royal Navy’s first test firing of a Polaris missile in order to avoid a clash with the publication of the 1968 Defence White Paper, but wisely abandoned the proposal when he was told it would have wrecked the tight timetable.385 When Resolution was commissioned into the Navy on 2 October 1967, not a single representative of the Government attended the commissioning ceremony as it coincided with the week of the Labour Party Conference.386
As the programme neared completion it suffered some embarrassing setbacks. When HMS Repulse was launched at Barrow on 4 November 1967, the submarine grounded in the Walney Channel, where it remained for twelve hours, before it was floated off on the next tide. Fortunately for Vickers and the Navy, a thorough inspection of Repulse revealed no damage. ‘Her paint has hardly been scraped,’ said a Vickers official.387 In January 1968, a severe storm hit Central and Western Scotland, badly damaging 250,000 houses, leaving 2000 people homeless and twenty people dead, and damaging the construction works at Faslane and Coulport.388 Although there was some ‘structural damage to some of the buildings’ at Faslane this did not affect the opening of the base in March 1968.389 However, Coulport was badly damaged. The Armament Depot was meant to provide limited support from mid-1967 and to have been fully operational by March 1968. By June 1968, Coulport was running 12–15 months behind schedule and had to work up in ‘highly unsatisfactory conditions’. The Armament Depot was even unable to receive certification from US Authorities in time to conduct the tactical missile out-load for Resolution’s first patrol and was only able to load the missiles with extensive US oversight.390
Another unfortunate incident occurred during HMS Resolution’s Demonstration and Shakedown Operation (DASO) (where both the Port and Starboard crews carried out the first test firings of a Polaris missile), which took place off Cape Kennedy on 15 February 1968. The first test firing by the Port crew was a complete success. ‘I gave permission to fire and up popped the first Polaris missile to have Royal Navy painted on the side, arching away into the clear blue sky, to deliver the dummy warheads “in the pickle barrel” a thousand or more miles down the range,’ remembered Henry.391 However, the second missile firing by the Starboard crew, under Commander Frewer, nearly ended in disaster. Prevailing conditions were terrible, with short choppy seas and wind force of 6–7. While Resolution was dived at a safe operational depth, the accompanying US escort, the destroyer USS Fred T Berry, lost visual and radar contact with the submarine’s 100-foot red telemetry mast, which was specially fitted to the submarine for the DASO and raised above the ocean to track the missile. The Fred T. Berry passed down Resolution’s starboard side and then over the top of the submarine and knocked off the telemetry mast.392 Fortunately for the Navy, the incident occurred before thirty-five representatives of the world’s media arrived on board the destroyer to observe the launch.393 A replacement mast was fitted and the subsequent testing completed in time to enable Resolution to recover the original programme for the second UK test firing on 4 March.
When the first ‘Longcast’ outline programme had been issued in February 1963, it had given February 1968 as the first date for the ‘First Training Firing’ by SSBN 01. The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Varyl Begg, rightly informed Healey that ‘by completing this firing on 15th February 1968, we could not have got much nearer to the target set five years ago’. It was a ‘very considerable achievement’.394 However, the delivery of the other three submarines, in particular HMS Renown and HMS Revenge, did not go according to plan. The closing years of the Polaris programme, especially between 1968 and 1970, were notable more for their s
etbacks and failures than for their successes. By December 1966, progress on the two submarines at Cammell Laird had slipped considerably and Mackenzie was forced to impress on the workforce just how important it was to ‘complete the programme ON TIME’. The Minister of Defence (Equipment), Roy Mason, was ‘shocked’ to discover that the programme was running five months late and ‘to hear that it might slip even further was most depressing’.395 The Cammell Laird workforce was largely responsible for this poor performance and the submarines were routinely referred to as ‘gravy boats’, in reference to the easy money that they represented. The Government issued repeated warnings to the company: ‘Work yourselves into a job and not out of it.’396 The MOD was so unimpressed with Cammell Laird’s performance that officials considered towing both Renown and Revenge to Barrow so that Vickers could finish the job.397 A consensus formed inside the MOD that there would be ‘no more orders for SSNs, if Cammell Lairds keep on letting us down over Renown and Revenge’.398
One of the most ‘awkward issues’ surrounding the delays to the two Cammell Laird submarines was that it was impossible to conduct Contractors’ Sea Trials on two submarines concurrently. When Cammell Laird delayed the in-service date of Renown by six months in October 1967, the entire programme, whereby each submarine joined the Fleet at six-monthly intervals, became disjointed. Unless Vickers’ second submarine, HMS Repulse, was delayed well beyond June 1968, she would hold up Cammell Laird’s first submarine, HMS Renown. ‘This would severely damage the whole programme,’ noted Mason.399 One official noted that the delay ‘would have to be reported to S of S [Secretary of State, Healey], the PM, NATO and Lord knows who else’.400 However, as Mackenzie later recalled, ‘As the year advanced it became clear that progress on Repulse at Barrow (the third SSBN in the programme) was now so good due to completion of Resolution and Valiant that she would be finished before Renown at Birkenhead.’401 Progress at Cammell Laird eventually slipped even further, resulting in Repulse leaving Barrow 6–10 weeks ahead of Renown. Although this altered the original programme, the Navy was confident that there was ‘as yet no reason to doubt’ it could meet the promised overall deployment date of one boat operational in April 1968 (Resolution) and another in June 1969, with the whole force operational by 1970.402
Cammell Laird was also struggling to build its two submarines, not just because of its sluggish workforce. Late in 1966 it emerged that the length between the bulkheads of the torpedo stowage compartment in Renown differed by one inch from that of Resolution. ‘Consternation erupted all round,’ remembered Mackenzie. ‘Laxity in adherence to, or in interpretation of documents and drawings, somewhere along the line between the lead yard and follow-up yard, was deemed the cause. It was a horrifying discovery at the time’ that fortunately ‘gave little more than a ripple of disturbance to the overall programme’.403 Then, in November, a ‘tinkling’ noise was reported in Renown’s reactor compartment.404 Eleven pieces of broken metal from Renown’s thermal sleeve were later found in the primary circuits.405 The Navy attempted to keep the ‘most disturbing situation’ concealed from the press and after intensive investigation nine pieces were recovered, but a further two remained undetected.406 Fortunately the remaining two pieces were soon located and removed. Had the engineers failed to do so Cammell Laird faced the possibility of having to remove the core, which would have meant at least a six-month delay and costs in the order of £500,000.407 Even so, the defect caused an additional two-month delay.
This was only the beginning of problems with Renown. In February 1969, when leaving Cammell Laird prior to Acceptance Trials, the submarine’s port bow struck the southern side of the entrance to the No. 7 dock at Cammell Laird, causing some internal bulkheads to buckle and damage to a number of torpedo tube bow shutters.408 It took four weeks to repair the damage, which was fortunately absorbed prior to the Starboard crew leaving for the US for the DASO in July and August 1969.409 The submarine finally became operational in November 1969, but not before colliding with a merchant ship, the MV Moyle, on 13 October 1969, while operating in the Irish Sea.410 Renown’s CO, Commander Kenneth Mills, was court-martialled, found guilty of hazarding his submarine and relieved of command.411 By this time Renown had earned a reputation as a troublesome submarine, a reputation it lived up to in 1974 when it suffered ‘intensive structural damage’ after hitting the bottom while on sea trials off Scotland. One of her COs recalled that Renown ‘gave us quite a few problems and wrecked the careers of a number of COs. Simply keeping her operational was difficult enough, never mind avoiding detection by the Soviets. A patrol felt like a technical endurance test from start to finish.’412
As the construction of the submarines neared completion the Government was forced to answer a series of questions about the future of Polaris. The first concerned whether or not to improve the system in response to advances in Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) defences, of which we shall see more in Chapter 8.413 By the end of 1967, these questions became bound up in a wider, inter-departmental review of the Polaris programme and nuclear policy that aimed to draw together ‘the considerable amount of work’ which had already been done in various fields of nuclear-weapons policy into a ‘single comprehensive memorandum’ for the new standing Ministerial Committee on Nuclear Policy (PN), which Harold Wilson created in the early autumn of 1966 in order to coordinate the government’s decision making on nuclear matters.414 The review allowed the small group of ministers involved in nuclear policy, especially Healey, to ‘ask some provocative questions about the value of the POLARIS system, in order to crystallize the policy case for the present programme’.415
The review, which was part of a wider defence review, was carried out over a six-month period by the Defence Review Working Party, and asked a number of questions, including whether or not the Polaris system should be improved and (even at this stage) whether or not the Government should continue with the programme or abandon it altogether. The result, a paper setting out the arguments for and against retention, was then scrutinized by the Defence and Overseas Policy (Official) Committee and next placed before Wilson’s Nuclear PN Committee. When it met on 5 December, there was only ‘tacit acceptance’ that Polaris should be retained.416, 417 When it met again on 5 January 1968, the nature of the debate had changed and the case for keeping Polaris was overshadowed by wider economic considerations. In November 1967, the pound had been devalued and the Cabinet had been asked to agree to a package of cuts and an expenditure review, ‘the most formidable task I had attempted in over three years of government,’ Wilson later wrote.418 Healey was under enormous pressure to reduce defence expenditure and was forced by the new Chancellor, Roy Jenkins, to choose between Polaris and the F-111, an American strike aircraft that was to be purchased for the RAF as a replacement for the cancelled TSR2.419 When the Cabinet met on 12 January, the balance of opinion was in favour of cancelling the F-111 and ‘of retaining our nuclear capacity’.420 Polaris survived.
COMMAND AND CONTROL ARRANGEMENTS
While the Government debated the future of Polaris the Navy started to implement the procedures to operate, command and control the Polaris force. Although the government still maintained that it was committed to internationalizing the Polaris force, by 1967 any way of doing so by means of an ANF, in a way that would have nullified the national ‘escape’ clause, had failed to develop in any concrete form.421 During the nuclear review in late 1967 ministers admitted that ‘there was no sign’ that it would be possible to internationalize the Polaris force ‘at present’.422 The command and control arrangements were therefore ‘planned on the basis that in the absence of any political directive on assignment … the force could operate under National control, at the same time, they can be tailored to meet the requirements of any assignment of the force to the Western Alliance’.423 But in both roles the Polaris force was ‘retained under ultimate UK control by virtue of the firing arrangements’.424
The command authority for the Polaris force was the headquarters
of the Commander-in-Chief Western Fleet (CINCWF) at Northwood in Middlesex.425 CINCWF was designated Commander Task Force 345 (CTF 345), and a special underground Polaris headquarters was constructed beneath Northwood incorporating a USN liaison cell and direct communication links with national and NATO authorities, all of which continue to this day. CINCWF was responsible for ensuring that when the force was operational, one submarine was continuously on deterrent patrol and that maximum use was made of the availability of a second submarine. He was also responsible for ensuring that each submarine on patrol was prepared to receive an order to fire at any time and could react to such an order within fifteen minutes (except for two non-consecutive periods of thirty-five minutes’ response time every day to allow maintenance). He was also required to keep the remaining submarines in harbour at maximum notice of twenty-four hours to fire thirteen missiles.426
Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, procedures for nuclear retaliation had been created, revised and then re-revised by the Macmillan and Douglas-Home governments.427 In 1967, Healey commissioned a review of the machinery of Government in War and a Cabinet Committee on Nuclear Retaliation Procedures (NRP(67)1) was tasked with identifying arrangements and procedures for the transitional period when the changeover from the V-bombers to Polaris was taking place and for the Polaris period thereafter.428 The NATO Commander, SACEUR, could, ‘in an emergency, obtain the approval of the North Atlantic Council to release nuclear weapons’ but, in order to protect the UK’s ‘supreme national interests’, authority for ordering a missile launch in both the NATO and national roles rested with the Prime Minister.429 Wilson wrote to Healey that it was ‘of vital importance that no submarine Commander shall be authorized to fire the Polaris weapons without my specific authority’.430 CINCWF was told that he was ‘responsible for ensuring that your command arrangements meet this requirement of the Prime Minister without any possibility of failure’.431 If the North Atlantic Council authorized SACEUR to release nuclear weapons, the order would have been transmitted by means of an ‘R’ hour message (SACEUR’s release message for general nuclear war, broadcast in the clear over all available NATO communication systems) direct to Northwood. Once received, Northwood would have immediately re-transmitted the message to the Polaris submarine(s) on patrol where the Commanders were under strict instructions not to obey the message until they had received a further order to fire from CINCWF. CINCWF would only have done so after receiving authorization from the Prime Minister.432