Commander James Leatherby, R.N. - Faslane Submarine Base

The guest speaker at tonight's meeting of the Rotary Club of Motherwell and Wishaw was Commander James Leatherby from Her Majesty's Naval Base Clyde (HMNB) otherwise known as Faslane. He gave an illustrated talk on the history of the base which is one of three operating in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy the others being HMNB Devonport and HMNB Portsmouth. Faslane is the service's headquarters in Scotland and is best known as the home of Britain's nuclear weapons, in the form of nuclear submarines armed with Trident missiles.

Faslane was constructed as a receiving base for U.S. equipment during the Second World War before being decommissioned and used, by a private company, as a ship breaking facility.During the 1960s, the British Government began negotiating the Polaris Sales Agreement with the United States regarding the purchase of Polaris missile systems to arm five British-built nuclear powered submarines. In the end, only four were constructed; H.M.Submarines Resolution, Repulse, Renown andRevenge, all being permanently based at Faslane.

Faslane was chosen to host these vessels at the height of the Cold War because of its geographic position, which forms a bastion on the relatively secluded but deep and easily navigable Gare Loch and Firth of Clyde on the west coast of Scotland. This location provides for rapid and stealthy access through the North Channel to the submarine patrolling areas in the North Atlantic through to the Norwegian Sea. At the time it was chosen, the location was also close to the American base at Holy Loch, which operated 1961-1992. One boat was always on patrol at any given time. In 1971 the base was home to the 3rd Submarine Squadron of nuclear and diesel powered patrol submarines, “the fighters”, and the 10th Submarine Squadron comprising thefour Polaris submarines, “the bombers”. 

HMNB Clyde lies on the eastern shore of Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute, to the north of the Firth of Clyde and 25 miles west of Glasgow. The submarine base encompassesa number of separate sites, the primary two being: Faslane, with facilities for submarine maintenance, surface fleet base (for mine countermeasure and fast patrol vessels) and office and accommodation buildings; RNAD Coulport, the armaments facility, in Loch Long, 2 miles west of Faslane.

The base is home to a number of lodger units including Flag Officer Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland, the Northern Diving Group and the Scottish Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence Police and Guarding Agency. It is base to 3,000 service personnel, 800 of their families and 4,000 civilian workers, largely from Babcock Marine, forming a major part of the economy of Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire. 

The Commander then answered the large number of questions put to him at the end of his talk