The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Top brass turns out to mark 50 years since nuclear base opened
Senior military figures have joined veterans and serving personnel to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the base now home to the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
Opened by the Queen Mother on May 10 1968, HMS Neptune, which evolved into HM Naval Base Clyde, is Scotland’s largest military base.
Yesterday the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Philip Jones reviewed marching troops and took the salute from Royal Navy servicemen and women on the parade ground.
Captain Craig Mearns, of HMS Neptune, was at the event along with military and civilian personnel and veterans.
Sir Philip said: “I’m really pleased to attend this event and to share in the celebrations as we mark an important milestone in the life of HMS Neptune.”
From 2020 the base will become the sole home of the UK Submarine Service as well as the future home of the Dreadnought class of nuclear deterrent submarines, with the workforce expected to increase to 8,500.
Sir Philip said that HM Naval Base Clyde is an “important base for the navy’s future”.
Commenting on the debate around nuclear weapons, with the presence of the Faslane Peace Camp near the base, he said: “Nuclear weapons have always been, in some people’s eyes, a controversial thing, ever since they were first invented and used at the end of the Second World War, and the Peace Camp has been here as part of the furniture, as it were, next to the Clyde submarine base ever since it existed, and we acknowledge that and we respect their right to protest in the way that they do.”