Abstract
This chapter introduces the subject of submarine nuclear propulsion, explaining how the first envisaged use of nuclear energy was expected to be submarine propulsion. However, the outbreak of World War II necessitated all-out research into producing an atomic bomb. This chapter gives a brief overview of the discovery of nuclear fission, the establishment of the first nuclear pile (as reactors were then called) to the adoption of the pressurised water reactor as the best means of propelling a submarine and building a prototype in the Idaho Desert before fitting to the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus. The chapter outlines which countries have developed nuclear propulsion and explores the political reasons why the UK decided to investigate nuclear propulsion for its submarine fleet. This chapter gives an introduction to the literature reviewed, a brief synopsis of the nuclear historiography to date and places the nuclear-powered submarine in context before summarising the book’s intentions.
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Notes
- 1.
Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, Rickover (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1982), p. 165.
- 2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_nuclear_submarines [Accessed 15 January 2021].
- 3.
NATO Acronyms: Ship Submersible Nuclear (SSN) and Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN).
- 4.
For further details of nuclear-powered Royal Navy submarines, see Appendix.
- 5.
Leonard Owen, ‘Nuclear Engineering in the United Kingdom – the First Ten Years’, Journal of British Nuclear Energy, (Jan., 1963), 23–32 (p. 23). Note: Chalk River, Canada, was the site of the Tube Alloys Project, the UK project to develop an atomic bomb, it later became part of the Manhattan Project.
- 6.
William Minter and Elizabeth Schmidt, ‘When Sanctions Worked: The Case of Rhodesia re-examined’, African Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 347, (Apr., 1988), 207–37 (p. 216).
- 7.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/01/argentina.military [Accessed 3 December 2015].
- 8.
J. F. Starks, ‘German “U”-Boat Design and Production’, Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, (1948), 291–315 (p. 298).
- 9.
HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano 2 May 1982.
- 10.
Harry Lambert, ed., Rolls-Royce: the Nuclear Power Connection (Rolls-Royce PLC, 2009), p. 64.
- 11.
For further details on the introduction of steam power into the Royal Navy see David Evans, Building the Steam Navy – Dockyards, Technology and the Creation of the Victorian Battle Fleet 1830–1906 (London, Conway Maritime Press, 2004).
- 12.
Henry D. Smyth, Atomic energy for military purposes: the official report of the atomic bomb under the auspices of the United States government, 1945 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1945), p. 2.
- 13.
- 14.
Hot bunking refers to the practice of two men sharing the same bunk in opposite watches.
- 15.
Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones, ‘Trials with HM Submarine Seraph and British Preparations to Defeat the Type XXI U-Boat, September-October 1944’, The Mariner’s Mirror, Vol. 86, No. 4, (Nov., 2000), 434–51.
- 16.
Starks, ‘German “U”-Boat Design and Production’, p. 297.
- 17.
Acronym, MAUD—Military Application of Uranium Detonation.
- 18.
TNA, AB 4/1014, Report by the MAUD Committee on the use of Uranium as a source of power, 1941.
- 19.
TNA, AB 6/81, Liaison with the Admiralty, 1946–48, Letter, R&D.240, 19 November 1946.
- 20.
Anon, ‘Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Progress at Harwell’, British Medical Journal, (31 July, 1948), 263–65 (p. 263).
- 21.
Eric J. Grove, Vanguard to Trident: British Naval Policy Since World War II (London, The Bodley Head, 1987), p. 230.
- 22.
Richard G. Hewlett & Francis Duncan, Nuclear Navy 1946–1962 (Chicago & London, The University of Chicago Press, 1974), p. 139.
- 23.
DS/MP referred to the reactor, the establishment was known as the Admiralty Reactor Test Establishment (ARTE) and later as HMS Vulcan. For clarity, the name Dounreay will be used throughout to refer to the reactor and the establishment.
- 24.
Hewlett & Duncan, Nuclear Navy, pp. 164–165.
- 25.
See for example Karl Lautenschlager, ‘The Submarine in Naval Warfare, 1901–2001’, International Security, Vol. 11, No. 3, (Winter, 1986–1987), 94–140.
- 26.
Michael Goodman, ‘With a little help from my friends: The Anglo-American Atomic Intelligence Partnership, 1945–1958’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 18, No. 1, (Mar., 2007), 155–83 (p. 155).
- 27.
Margaret Gowing, ‘Britain, America and the Bomb’, in Retreat from Power: Studies in Britain’s Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century, Volume Two After 1939 (London, Macmillan, 1981), p. 121.
- 28.
John Baylis, ‘The 1958 Anglo-American Mutual Defence Agreement: The search for Nuclear Interdependence’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3, (Jun., 2008), 425–66 (p. 426).
- 29.
Treaty Series No. 41 (1958) Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the United States of America for Co-operation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes Cmnd.537. Hereinafter referred to as the Mutual Defence Agreement.
- 30.
Ted Horlick, ‘Submarine Propulsion in the Royal Navy’, Journal of Naval Engineering, Vol. 27, Book 1, (Jun., 1982), 1–22.
- 31.
Robert Hill, ‘Forty Years On: The UK Naval Nuclear Propulsion Programme’, Address to the Institute of Marine Engineers, 10 October 1995.
- 32.
Acronym US Naval Reactor: S5W refers to Submarine reactor, 5th generation, Westinghouse build.
- 33.
Robert Hill, ‘Admiral Hyman G Rickover USN and the UK Nuclear Submarine Propulsion Programme’, International Journal of Naval History, Vol. 4, Iss. 2, (Aug., 2005), 1–16.
- 34.
ODNB, Robert Fox, ‘Gowing, Margaret Mary (1921–1998)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/71257 [Accessed 21 October 2015].
- 35.
Natural uranium is 238U and 0.7% of this consists of the isotope 235U. It is this isotope that more readily releases its neutrons during the fission process. Enriched uranium involves processing natural uranium to contain a greater percentage of 235U.
- 36.
Margaret Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy 1945–52: Volume 1, Policy Making (London, Macmillan Press, 1974), p. 239.
- 37.
Gowing, Independence and Deterrence, Volume. 1, p. 445.
- 38.
Mutual Defence Agreement, 1958, p. 5.
- 39.
Lorna Arnold, ‘A letter from Oxford: The History of Nuclear History in Britain’, Minerva, A Review of Science, Learning and Policy, Vol. 38, (2001), 201–19 (p. 201).
- 40.
Private papers, Rear Admiral Peter Hammersley.
- 41.
Since completing research Rear Admiral Hammersley passed away in January 2020.
- 42.
Mike Critchley, British Warships Since 1945: Part 1 (Liskeard, Maritime Books, 1980), p. 10.
- 43.
C. J. Bartlett, The Long Retreat: A Short History of British Defence Policy, 1945–1970 (London, Macmillan, 1972), p. 34.
- 44.
Laurence W. Martin, ‘The Market for Strategic Ideas in Britain: The “Sandys Era”’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 56, No. 1, (Mar., 1962), 23–41 (p. 26).
- 45.
Peter Hennessey & James Jinks, The Silent Deep: The Royal Navy Submarine Service since 1945 (London, Allen Lane, 2015), p. 94.
- 46.
Broadlands Archive, MB1/I300, First Sea Lord’s Quarterly Newsletters, 1 November 1957.
- 47.
TNA, ADM 1/20414, Functions of operating submarines: investigation and report into possibilities of operating submarines as convoy escorts, or with hunting groups in a fighter role, 1947–49; 1954, Report, TASW 297/49, October 1949.
- 48.
Broadlands Archive, MB1/J40, letter, Mountbatten to Rear Admiral Galantin USN, 21 January 1965.
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Jones, G.M. (2022). Introduction. In: The Development of Nuclear Propulsion in the Royal Navy, 1946-1975. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05129-6_1
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