RNAD* Coulport filled me with both horror and joy. It was where the full magnitude of the job hit home as it was here that the boat was loaded with its nuclear arsenal. It wasn’t all bad, though, as this was also the place we sailed back to after being on patrol to unload these messengers of death. Back in the 1980s it was one of the most secret military installations in the whole of Britain. Around eight miles from Faslane on the eastern side of Loch Long, Coulport was basically a long jetty. The Polaris missiles and their devastating warheads were kept in storage facilities very nearby. Before heading out on patrol we’d tie up alongside for two or three days as the missiles were loaded onto the boat through the hatches in the casing and into the missile tubes.
Apart from a very small number of people, no one knew just how many missiles were actually loaded onto the boat with warheads at the ready. This was because the missiles were shrouded by a protective covering, so you couldn’t actually pick out the Re-entry bodies which housed the warheads. I used to spend my watches as quartermaster trying to see if anything was actually going into the missile tube. I used to wonder, Is it all a big bluff and we’re not actually carrying any missiles at all? But that was a vain hope. We always went on patrol with nuclear weapons. The missiles were brought down to the jetty on massive lorries from their hidden-away bunkers that had been built into the hills of the base, then transferred over by crane under the guidance of the WEO and his team. This was always quite a nerve-wracking procedure as the crane operator hoisted the deadly missiles from the jetty over to the casing. I’d look on in horror, trusting that the crane wouldn’t buckle under the weight and drop one into the water. Now, that would have been a story.
Coulport was grim, no doubt about it. Bleak, brutal and usually overcast, the sky would have a dark, foreboding quality about it, a miserable steel grey, like the inside of an old saucepan, as if it had foreknowledge of what the next two or three months underwater had in store for me. I used to spend hours as quartermaster looking through my binoculars towards White Bay, Finart Bay and into Ardentinny Forest on the other side of Loch Long, convinced that Soviet spies were monitoring our every movement as we prepared the missiles. I mean, come on, they must have been. I’m sure they would have had reconnaissance patrols in that part of Scotland ever since the Polaris programme had begun. I thought the same when we left for patrol. After all, there were many farmhouses along the banks of Gare Loch, but who lived in them? And what about all the small boats we passed? Who was crewing them? We had no idea, and you could only assume that the Soviets were.
But it was the nights that really got to me. As QM, I’d stand on the jetty staring at the black bomber before me, her missile payload full, hoping to God that the next few months would pass without drama, that she’d look after us all and keep us safe and away from danger. That’s all I ever wanted: no fuss, no surprises. Nowadays – well, at least before Putin’s rise to power – it’s hard to believe that nuclear war is remotely conceivable; but for this nervous, somewhat eccentric 19-year-old back then, it looked a very real possibility. One misconstrued order, Reagan trigger-happy in the White House with Thatcher at his every beck and call, the Soviets on the brink, rumours emerging weekly of the Russian military waiting in the wings, keeping an eye on Gorbachev and his reforms. Would he go too far for their liking? What would that lead to? Then we’d have all the hawkish headbangers in charge, ready to play their ultimate hand. Maybe they’d consider a first-strike option to wipe out the enemy. I’m sure I used to overthink all the different scenarios, but that was how I felt before most patrols. Broadcasting the fact that I thought both the president of the United States and our own prime minister to be major loons was probably not good for one’s career prospects, so I kept these opinions very much to myself.
Before we went on patrol, we would occasionally receive a VIP visitor in a ‘morale-boosting’ exercise to see us gently off into that good night. They were usually mind-numbingly boring, generally some Rear Admiral or other. God forbid if he wasn’t a submariner; his welcome would be openly hostile, the big ‘fuck off’ pill. They’d come on board and drone on and on about what a great job we were doing for both the Navy and the country, and it was neither morale-boosting nor the slightest bit interesting. They spent little time with the junior rates, and when they did it was always so stilted and staged and with more than a hint of condescension about it as we all stood around praying for it to end.
Two visits, however, live long in the memory. The first was a very senior cabinet minister of the day, who, although extremely charismatic and charming, had a low tolerance to alcohol, and over the course of an afternoon he proceeded to drink himself into a complete stupor with the senior and junior rates.
The visit had started well. He’d been taken on a brief tour of the boat, then he’d given a stirring speech about the self-sacrifice of submariners, what we have to go through to do the job we do, and how he, along with the support staff, our families and the nation held us in the highest of esteem knowing the harrowing responsibilities that rested on our shoulders. It was Churchillian stuff all right, far more inspiring than listening to some Admiral Toffington-Smythe waffle on; indeed, a couple of the crew to my left started to well up as his speech reached its climax, and there was wild cheering at its end. I didn’t agree with everything he said – some bits were a tad jingoistic for my liking – but I had to admire the sheer coolness of the guy and how he immediately transfixed the crew. Tour concluded, speech over and on to the main business of the day – the drinking. It became clear after an hour or so that he was game for a session, and lunch was hastily put together for him in the senior rates’ lounge to see if we could quell the effects of the booze. To no avail, though, for he/we ploughed on and by mid-afternoon he was paralytic and totally incoherent. It was then decided to get him onshore sharpish, before anything leaked out.
He couldn’t get off the boat under his own steam, so I had the unenviable task of being underneath his left buttock, my shoulder heaving his scrawny arse out through the main access hatch, while he caterwauled about the need for just one more drink, demanding to see the skipper and raving wildly about Mrs Thatcher.
He was then carried over the gangway, a sailor under each arm, to an awaiting Navy bus and whisked away, never to be mentioned again. The only sight funnier than this was the following 30 minutes, as a wild-eyed coxswain bellowed his way through the submarine with murderous intent, looking for the chief culprits. Not very constructive, given he’d been sitting next to the VIP for most of the lunch, and had matched him drink for drink.
The second pre-patrol visit I remember was the PM herself, at Faslane. She was very petite but all hustle and bustle as she charged around the submarine, clambering up and down ladders, through bulkhead doors and in and out of the various compartments. I think it was her second visit to the boat, and by the looks of it she remembered where everything was.
I happened to be on the casing making my way off the boat to begin my quartermaster watch, when I started chatting to one of the WEMs (weapons engineering mechanics), who was checking the forward escape hatch. He needed to pass some equipment down the hatch to another mechanic below to wind up proceedings, and, well known for his short fuse, he was getting agitated wondering where his mate had gone. I looked down into the boat with him, and we both noticed a figure standing slightly under the hatch but further into the torpedo space, so we couldn’t recognise them.
That was when he went mental: ‘Whoever that is down there, get the fuck out of the way. You’re blocking the hatch, you big cock splash!’
We both stood dumbstruck as Thatcher’s aquiline face loomed into full view beneath us. ‘Is everything all right, gentlemen?’ she asked, peering upwards.
By this time we’d both vanished into thin air, fast. The WEM ran on board to hide, while I lay down and made myself small in the QM’s cabin. Meanwhile, the coxswain was on the warpath looking for the two hooligans who had just abused the prime minister. Some moments later he pitched his head out of the main access, incoherently shouting at me as to whether I’d seen or heard anything. Pretending not to hear him, I waved back and smiled, thumbs up. He glared at me but had no proof of anything, so he disappeared back on board to continue the hunt.
* Royal Navy Armaments Depot.