Saturday 20 July 2013

When I ask the question where in Scotland will you find nuclear weapons, the usual answer is "Faslane on the Clyde".

This is true of course relating to the weapons loaded on and off the Trident submarine fleet, but few seem to know that all of Britain's Cold War nuclear weapons, such as short range nuclear weapons, long range missiles, battlefield nuclear weapons, and the neutron bomb (nicknamed by the Communists "The Capitalists Bomb", which if exploded in the air will kill all the people on the ground with intense radiation leaving properties intact), are stored in a secret location, as the crow flies, a mere 60 miles from Glasgow. 

Some years ago I spent the day with George Bush, (meeting him off the plane at Glasgow Airport) discussing nuclear issues;  no, not the past incumbent in the White House, but Commander George Bush who spent 7 years of his life below the polar ice cap in charge of an American nuclear submarine.   

He said that he wished to apologise to the Scottish people for putting their lives at risk, explaining that at any time during those 7 years, himself and his deputy could have fired off all their nuclear missiles, in the boredom of the job they sometimes joked "let's have a fireworks display tonight". 

One thing the commander said really shocked him, was how Britain could possibly store such weapons so close to a densely populated area, as should a chain reaction nuclear explosion occur, it would take the whole of the Central Belt of Scotland with it.

Where is the secret store?  It is at Machrihanish on the Kintyre peninsula.   Moving all the weapons there was completed on 29 March 1989.

See also:  More blogs by John Jappy