128-578: Hone Papita Raukura " Ralph " Hotere ONZ (11 August 1931 – 24 February 2013) was a New Zealand artist. He was born in Mitimiti , Northland and is widely regarded as one of New Zealand's most important artists. In 1994 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Otago and in 2003 received an Icon Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand . In the 2012 New Year Honours , Hotere
256-550: A phenolic thermosetting material infused with quartz fibres , in the heat shield of the warheads, which also acted as a defence against irradiation . Its adoption by the British warhead saved on research, but required a redesign of their warhead. The new warhead was designated the A-3TK, the old one being the A-3T. In 1972 Chevaline was estimated to cost £235 million. Agreement was reached with
384-590: A Labour government that retention of a British Polaris force was necessary." In June 1968 it was agreed that the Polaris boats would be assigned to NATO. On 14 June 1969, Commander Henry Ellis, the head of the Royal Navy's Plans Division, formally notified his RAF counterpart that the Royal Navy was assuming the responsibility for the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent. For submarine captains accustomed to patrols in other submarines,
512-441: A Polaris patrol required a different mindset. Instead of locating, stalking and closing on prospective targets, the Polaris boat was itself the hunted, and had to avoid any contact with other vessels. For submariners accustomed to diesel-powered boats, the Polaris boats were very pleasant indeed. There was no need to conserve water, as there was distilling capacity to spare, so the crew could have hot showers and laundry facilities. Nor
640-437: A budget of $ 2 billion. SPO had to overcome formidable technological challenges; but its success was also due to Burke's marketing of Polaris as a second strike weapon. In this role, its capabilities were highlighted and its limitations minimised. The first Polaris boat, USS George Washington , fired a Polaris missile on 20 July 1960, and commenced its initial operational patrol on 16 November 1960. The idea of moving
768-710: A copy of the W58. However, this would require techniques and equipment not employed in the UK before, and the AWRE Warhead Safety Coordinating Committee (WSCC) reported in December 1963 that the design of the W58 primary did not meet UK safety standards. The decision was therefore taken in March 1964 to substitute the British fission primary , codenamed "Katie", used in the WE.177 B developed for Skybolt. The fusion secondary
896-681: A debate in the House of Commons on 24 January 1980. Sea trials were held in November 1980. The system became operational in mid-1982 on Renown , followed by Revenge in 1983, Resolution in 1985, and Repulse in 1987. One hundred A-3TK warheads were produced between 1979 and 1982. The final cost reached £1,025 million. However, the Public Accounts Committee noted that due to inflation, £1 billion in April 1981 (equivalent to £3.87 billion in 2023)
1024-706: A deep technical mission to the United States to study the latest developments in the design of ballistic missile submarines. They met with Rear Admiral Pete Galantin , Raborn's successor as the head of SPO, and executives at the Electric Boat Company , which was building the American Polaris boats. While it was desirable to hew closely to the American design, this would involve retooling the British shipyards and purchasing American equipment. An alternative proposal
1152-455: A deterrent effect as the ability to destroy forty. The Admiralty considered the possibility of hybrid submarines that could operate as hunter-killers while carrying eight Polaris missiles, but McNamara noted that this would be inefficient, as twice as many submarines would need to be on station to maintain the deterrent, and cautioned that the effect of tinkering with the US Navy's 16-missile layout
1280-463: A deterrent. To address this problem, the United Kingdom embarked on the development of a Medium Range Ballistic Missile called Blue Streak . By 1959—before it had even entered service—serious concerns had been raised about its own vulnerability, as it was liquid-fuelled and deployed above ground, and therefore extremely vulnerable to a pre-emptive nuclear strike . The Royal Navy began seeking
1408-581: A double cross jack . In 1992, Hotere transformed the RKS Gallery in Wellington with an exhibition utilising kilometres of number 8 wire . Hotere's work was slowed by a stroke in 2001, but he continued to create and exhibit regularly until his death in February 2013. A documentary film of the artist's life and work, Hotere , was released by Paradise Films in 2001, in association with Creative New Zealand and
SECTION 10
#17330846526371536-459: A fault in the American neutron initiators , and had to be repeated as Flintlock/Charcoal on 10 September 1965. This tested a design of the ET.317 using less plutonium. With four Polaris boats each carrying 16 missiles each with three warheads, there were 192 warheads in total. This modification therefore saved 166 kg of plutonium worth £2.5 million. Additional active materials required were obtained from
1664-452: A few miles from Glasgow . At least one submarine was always on patrol to provide a continuous at-sea deterrent. In the 1970s it was considered that the re-entry vehicles were vulnerable to the Soviet anti-ballistic missile screen concentrated around Moscow . To ensure that a credible and independent nuclear deterrent was maintained, the UK developed an improved front end named Chevaline . There
1792-546: A finger on the nuclear trigger through multinational crewing of the ships carrying the nuclear missiles. On 7 November 1962, McNamara met with Kennedy, and recommended that Skybolt be cancelled. He then briefed the British Ambassador to the United States , David Ormsby-Gore . At a conference in the Caribbean, Macmillan insisted that the UK would be retaining an independent deterrent capability. Kennedy's offer of Hound Dog
1920-637: A joint discovery, but the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) ended technical cooperation. The British government feared resurgence of United States isolationism , as had occurred after the First World War , in which case the UK might have to fight an aggressor alone; or that the UK might lose its great power status and its influence in world affairs. It therefore restarted its own development effort, now codenamed High Explosive Research . The first British atomic bomb
2048-494: A new Mark 2 weapon bay housing three re-entry vehicles. This arrangement was originally described as a "cluster warhead" but was replaced with the term Multiple Re-Entry Vehicle (MRV). They were not independently targeted (as a MIRV missile is) but the three warheads were spread about a common target, landing about 1 nautical mile (1.9 km) apart and one second apart so as to not be affected by each other's radiation pulse . They were stated to be equivalent in destructive power to
2176-538: A new base was undertaken by the Ministry of Public Building and Works . Construction was not straightforward, as the ground was rocky and the rainfall was high. Works included a new jetty, accommodation, recreational facilities, workshops, emergency power sources, a mobile repair facility and a calibration laboratory. The new base opened in August 1968. It was served by a weapons store at nearby Coulport . HM Dockyard, Rosyth ,
2304-460: A new design. The 130-metre (425 ft) boat would have a displacement of 7,600 tonnes (7,500 long tons), more than twice that of HMS Dreadnought , the Royal Navy's first nuclear-powered submarine. Following British practice, the boats would be identical, with no deviation allowed. The value of this was driven home by a visit to the submarine tender USS Hunley , where the costs of non-standard components were evident. The project
2432-505: A nuclear role as early as 1945, when the Naval Staff suggested the possibility of launching missiles with atomic warheads from ships or submarines. In 1948 it proposed using carrier-based aircraft for nuclear weapons delivery , although atomic bombs small enough to be carried by them did not yet exist. Its "carriers versus bombers" debate with the RAF resembled the similar inter-service dispute in
2560-455: A pathway leading the prow. Each plank has had a strip laid bare to reveal the natural wood underneath beneath. Several of the boards are inscribed with a traditional Maori proverb, Ka hinga atu he tete-kura haramai he tete-kura ("As one fern frond (person) dies - one is born to take its place"). A slight change has been made in the wording of the proverb, replacing haramai (transfer, pass over) to ara mai (the path forward), possibly indicating
2688-660: A range of decoys. The British Polaris programme was announced in December 1962 following the Nassau Agreement between the US and the UK. The Polaris Sales Agreement provided the formal framework for cooperation. Construction of the submarines began in 1964, and the first patrol took place in June 1968. All four boats were operational in December 1969. They were operated by the Royal Navy , and based at Clyde Naval Base on Scotland's west coast,
SECTION 20
#17330846526372816-461: A result of purely British requirements. This added about £2 million to the cost of the system. The government denied speculation that the Nassau Agreement permitted the addition of electronic mechanisms in the missile to give the United States a veto over its use. The A-3 missile that replaced the earlier A-1 and A-2 models in the US Navy had a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km) and
2944-638: A single one-megaton warhead. It was believed that the MRV arrangement would also make the warhead harder to intercept with an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) similar to that of the American Nike Zeus system. Testing of the A-3, with its new guidance and re-entry packages commenced on 7 August 1962, and continued until 2 July 1964. Thirty-eight test firings were carried out, with the longest range achieved being 2,284 nautical miles (4,230 km). The first submerged launch
3072-437: A typical patrol might include 1,587 kilograms (3,500 lb) of beef, 2,268 kilograms (5,000 lb) of potatoes, 5,000 eggs, 1,000 chickens, 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) of sausages, and 1 tonne (0.98 LT) of beans. Polaris skippers paid great attention to morale on their boats, which tended to sag around the fifth and sixth weeks of a patrol. The original US Navy Polaris had not been designed to penetrate ABM defences, but
3200-598: A voice in the planning process without full access to nuclear weapons, while the Standing Naval Force Atlantic was established as a joint naval task force, to which NATO nations contributed ships rather than ships having multinational crews. There was little dissent in the House of Commons from the government's nuclear weapons policy; it had bipartisan support until 1960, with only the Liberals temporarily dissenting in 1958. Despite opposition from its left wing
3328-562: Is not head of state. Members are entitled to the post-nominal letters "ONZ". Appointments to the order are made by royal warrant under the monarch's sign manual on the prime minister's advice. The order is administered by a Secretary and Registrar (the Clerk of the Executive Council). Richie McCaw represented the Order at the coronation of Charles III and Camilla in 2023, and took part in
3456-593: The Resolution class . Resolution was launched on 15 September 1965, and commissioned on 2 October 1967. Resolution conducted a test firing at the American Eastern Range on 15 February 1968. The first Cammell Laird boat, Renown followed, and was launched on 25 February 1967. The second Vickers boat, Repulse , was launched on 11 November 1967. Concerns about the Walney Channel proved justified; when
3584-612: The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell was directed towards development of a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor which January 1952 studies showed was too large for use by the Royal Navy, and not into a Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) of the kind that the US Navy had under development, as the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority did not see this kind of reactor as having civil application. Submarine propulsion research
3712-639: The Auckland Teachers' Training College under the tutelage of J. D. Charlton Edgar , he moved to Dunedin in 1952, where he studied at Dunedin School of Art, part of King Edward Technical College . During the later 1950s, he worked as a schools art advisor for the Education Department in the Bay of Islands . In 1961 Hotere gained a New Zealand Art Societies Fellowship and travelled to England where he studied at
3840-664: The Central School of Art and Design in London. During 1962–1964 he studied in France and travelled around Europe, during which time he witnessed the development of the Pop Art and Op Art movements. His travels took him, among other places, to the war cemetery in Italy where his brother was buried. This event, and the politics of Europe during the 1960s, had a profound effect on Hotere's work, notably in
3968-676: The Hound Dog air-launched cruise missile , which was cheaper, more accurate, and actually worked; the first five Skybolt test launches were all failures. McNamara was also concerned about the UK retaining an independent nuclear force, and worried that the US could be drawn into a nuclear war by the UK. He sought to draw the UK into a Multilateral Force (MLF), an American concept under which North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nuclear weapons would remain in US custody, thereby heading off nuclear proliferation within NATO, but all NATO nations would have
Ralph Hotere - Misplaced Pages Continue
4096-533: The New Zealand Film Commission . Written and directed by Merata Mita , the documentary made its overseas debut at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival . Hotere was of Māori descent ( Te Aupōuri and Te Rarawa ). He married three times, with two of his wives also being artists. His second wife was artist and poet Cilla McQueen , whom he married in 1973, and with whom he moved to Careys Bay near Port Chalmers in 1974. The two separated amicably during
4224-569: The Order of Merit and the Order of the Companions of Honour . The order comprises the Sovereign and ordinary, additional and honorary members. The ordinary membership is limited to 20 living members, and at any time there may be fewer than 20. Additional members may be appointed to commemorate important royal, state or national occasions, and such appointments were made in 1990 for the 150th anniversary of
4352-631: The Polaris Sales Agreement , which was signed on 6 April 1963. British politicians did not like to talk about "dependence" on the United States, preferring to describe the Special Relationship as one of "interdependence". As had been feared, the President of France , Charles de Gaulle , vetoed the UK's application for admission to the EEC on 14 January 1963, citing the Nassau Agreement as one of
4480-658: The Quebec Conference in August 1943, the prime minister , Winston Churchill , and the president of the United States , Franklin Roosevelt , signed the Quebec Agreement , which merged Tube Alloys with the American Manhattan Project to create a combined British, American and Canadian project. The British government trusted that the United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as
4608-567: The Sangro series of paintings. Hotere returned to New Zealand and exhibited in Dunedin in 1965, and returned to the city in 1969 when he became the University of Otago's Frances Hodgkins Fellow . At about that time he began to introduce literary elements to his work. He worked with poets such as Hone Tuwhare and Bill Manhire to produce several strong paintings, and produced other works specifically for
4736-464: The 1990s. Hotere later married Mary McFarlane , another notable artist, in February 2002. Hotere died on 24 February 2013, aged 81 and was survived by his daughter Andrea, three mokopuna (grandchildren) and also his third wife Mary. He was buried at Mitimiti . Hotere's former studio was on land at the tip of Observation Point , the large bluff overlooking the Port Chalmers container terminal. When
4864-521: The A-3. With a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km), it had a new weapons bay housing three re-entry vehicles (REBs or Re-Entry Bodies in US Navy parlance) and a new 200-kilotonne-of-TNT (840 TJ) W58 warhead expected to become available around 1970. A decision was urgently required on whether to purchase the old A-2 missile or the new A-3, as the A-2 production lines would shut down within two years. The Zuckerman mission came out strongly in favour of
4992-642: The AWRE and the Admiralty. While it could not be carried by the ten George Washington - and Ethan Allen -class boats, it could be accommodated on the British Resolution class. Zuckerman attended a meeting with Rear Admiral Levering Smith , the director of SPO, and John S. Foster, Jr. , the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , at which the provision of Poseidon to the UK
5120-623: The Admiralty complex there, spread over three different sites. To allow the Polaris Executive to be co-located, a block of single-storey prefabricated offices was built at Foxhill on the south side of Bath, which was occupied in February 1964. By 1966, including allocated but not designated staff, the Polaris Executive had 38 staff at the London office, 430 in Bath, 5 at the Ministry of Aviation , and 31 in Washington. An early issue that arose concerned
5248-550: The Americans to conduct another series of tests in Nevada. The first of these, Arbor/Fallon, was conducted on 23 May 1974. By 1975, the cost of Chevaline had risen to £400 million, but it was protected from the budget cuts that affected the rest of defence spending by its own secrecy. Its main technical problem was that the PAC was heavier than the warhead it replaced, which reduced the range of
Ralph Hotere - Misplaced Pages Continue
5376-459: The Americans were given permission to base the US Navy's Polaris boats at Holy Loch in Scotland. The financial arrangement was particularly favourable to the UK, as the US was charging only the unit cost of Skybolt, absorbing all the research and development costs. Far from taking this as a defeat, the Royal Navy's planning for the eventual purchase of Polaris was accelerated. A June 1960 paper by
5504-865: The Chief Polaris Executive (CPE); the term was henceforth used to refer to both the man and his organisation. Rowland Baker, who had been the head of the Dreadnought Project Team, was appointed the Technical Director. Captain C. W. H. Shepard, who had worked on the Seaslug missile project, became the Deputy Director for Weapons, and Captain Leslie Bomford was appointed the Polaris Logistics Officer. The creation of this position
5632-426: The Director General, Weapons, Rear Admiral Michael Le Fanu , recommended that a Polaris project should be created along the same lines as SPO. The Kennedy administration expressed serious doubts about Skybolt. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was highly critical of the US bomber fleet, which he doubted was cost effective in the missile age. Skybolt suffered from rising costs, and offered few benefits over
5760-552: The Labour party supported British nuclear weapons but opposed tests, and Labour Opposition Leader Hugh Gaitskell and shadow foreign secretary Aneurin Bevan agreed with Sandys on the importance of reducing dependence on the American deterrent. Bevan told his colleagues that their demand for unilateral nuclear disarmament would send a future Labour government "naked into the conference chamber" during international negotiations. Gaitskell's Labour party ceased supporting an independent deterrent in 1960 via its new "Policy for Peace", after
5888-405: The New Zealand literary journal Landfall . Hotere also worked in collaboration with other prominent artists, notably Bill Culbert . Hotere moved to Carey's Bay in Port Chalmers in 1969, spending most of his life in the town. From the 1970s onward, Hotere was noted for his use of unusual tools and materials in creating his work, notably the use of power tools on corrugated iron and steel within
6016-425: The Pacific or Indian Ocean, but with only four a depot ship would be required, which would cost around £18 to £20 million. A base would be required, and Fremantle in Australia was suggested. In any case, it would not be possible before all four boats were operational. The proposal ran into opposition from the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Lyman Lemnitzer , who pressed on 2 January 1967 to have
6144-405: The Polaris boats assigned to NATO as promised under the Nassau Agreement. In January 1968, the issue became moot when Cabinet decided to withdraw British forces from East of Suez . The prospect of cancelling Polaris was also discussed, but Wilson fought for its retention. In the end, "the economic, strategic and diplomatic benefits of the Polaris system were even ultimately great enough to persuade
6272-455: The Polaris boats to NATO, in accord with the Nassau Agreement. The first decision required was how many Polaris boats should be built. While the Avro Vulcans to carry Skybolt were already in service, the submarines to carry Polaris were not, and there was no provision in the defence budget for them. Some naval officers feared that their construction would adversely impact the hunter-killer submarine programme. The number of missiles required
6400-512: The Polaris boats, signifying that they were the capital ships of their time. All were named after ships that Mountbatten had served on. The first boat, HMS Resolution , was laid down by Vickers on 26 February 1964; the second, HMS Renown , by Cammell Laird on 26 June 1964. They were followed by two more boats the following year, one at each yard: HMS Repulse at Barrow on 16 June 1965, and HMS Revenge at Birkenhead on 19 May 1965. The Polaris boats became known as
6528-499: The Port crew, and Commander Kenneth Frewer, the Starboard crew. On 16 October 1964, in the midst of the election campaign that brought the Wilson government to office, China conducted its first nuclear test . This led to fears that India might follow suit. Consideration was therefore given to the possibility of basing Polaris boats in the Far East. A planning paper was drawn up in January 1965. The Navy Department reported that with five boats it would be possible to have one on patrol in
SECTION 50
#17330846526376656-424: The RNPS to have equipment that looked identical to an actual Polaris submarine, and performed or simulated its operation. Would-be submarine captains went through the Submarine Command Course , known as the Perisher. This had always been an extremely tough course; now it became tougher still. It was designed to test candidates to their utmost, and to allow them to explore and accept their limitations. Despite passing
6784-412: The Royal Navy a nuclear submarine reactor, which would allow it to immediately proceed with building its own nuclear-powered submarine. The British government endorsed this idea, as it saved a great deal of money. The British development of the hydrogen bomb , and a favourable international relations climate created by the Sputnik crisis , facilitated the amendment of the McMahon Act to permit this, and
6912-415: The Royal Navy had to ensure that its small Polaris force operating alone, and often with only one submarine on deterrent patrol, could penetrate the ABM screen around Moscow. The Americans upgraded to Poseidon, which had MIRV warheads. Although it suffered from reliability problems that were not completely resolved until 1974, it represented a clear improvement over Polaris, and became the preferred option of
7040-427: The Royal Navy's list of priorities, and the Royal Navy Submarine Service had formed, like the Fleet Air Arm , something of a private navy within the Royal Navy. Unlike the Fleet Air Arm though, it had no representation on the Board of the Admiralty such as the Fleet Air Arm enjoyed through the Fifth Sea Lord , and the only submarine flag officer billet was FOSM. Few submariners expected to rise to flag rank, but this
7168-421: The Royal Navy. The First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Caspar John , denounced the "millstone of Polaris hung around our necks" as "potential wreckers of the real navy". Even among the submariners there was a notable lack of enthusiasm for lurking in the depths staying out of trouble as opposed to the more active mission of the hunter-killer submarines. In earlier times submarine construction had been low on
7296-400: The Treaty of Waitangi , in 2002 for the Queen's Golden Jubilee, in 2007 for the 20th anniversary of the institution of the Order, in 2012 for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, in 2022 for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, and in 2023 to mark the coronation of King Charles III. Additional members have the same status as ordinary members. Honorary membership is for citizens of nations of which the Sovereign
7424-410: The UK would have to either follow suit or maintain Polaris alone. "True to form", commented Patrick Gordon Walker , "we either buy weapons which don’t exist or buy those destined for the junkyard of Steptoe & Son ." Under Article XI of the Polaris Sales Agreement, the UK contributed five per cent of research and development costs of Polaris incurred after 1 January 1963, plus any costs incurred as
7552-406: The US Army to develop the Jupiter missile , although there were concerns about the viability and safety of a liquid-fuel rocket at sea. To handle the Navy's side of the joint project, the United States Secretary of the Navy , Charles Thomas , created the Special Projects Office (SPO), with Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, Jr. , a naval aviator , as its director. Apart from nuclear propulsion,
7680-448: The US. Some 5.37 tonnes of UK-produced plutonium was exchanged for 6.7 kg of tritium and 7.5 tonnes of highly enriched uranium between 1960 and 1979. Warhead manufacture commenced in December 1966. It was originally estimated that Polaris would require 6,000 officers and men. Although less than what had been required for the V-bombers, this was still substantial, and the well-trained personnel required had to be found from within
7808-588: The United States at this time that led to the " Revolt of the Admirals ". The demand for a nuclear-capable carrier bomber led to the development of the Blackburn Buccaneer . It required a small warhead, which drove the development of the Red Beard . The Defence Research Policy Committee (DRPC) considered the prospect of arming submarines with nuclear missiles, but its March 1954 report highlighted technical problems that it did not expect to be resolved for many years. Studies of nuclear reactors for nuclear marine propulsion commenced in December 1949, but research at
SECTION 60
#17330846526377936-399: The United States to discuss Polaris on 8 January 1963. It included the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff , Vice Admiral Sir Varyl Begg ; the Deputy Secretary of the Admiralty, James Mackay; Rear Admiral Hugh Mackenzie ; physicist Sir Robert Cockburn ; and F. J. Doggett from the Ministry of Aviation. Its principal finding was that the Americans had developed a new version of the Polaris missile,
8064-482: The Vickers yard still managed to complete the hunter-killer Valiant in 1966 and Warspite the following year. The final boat, Revenge , was completed on 4 December 1969. There was concern in 1966 when it was discovered that the distance between the bulkheads in the torpedo storage department on Renown differed from that on Resolution by 1 inch (25 mm). An even more disturbing revelation occurred in November 1966, when eleven pieces of broken metal were found in
8192-444: The approval of the Board of Admiralty to build a nuclear-powered submarine. This coincided with Admiral Arleigh Burke 's appointment as the US Navy's Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) in August. Mountbatten visited the United States in October, and through his friendship with Burke, arranged for US Navy cooperation in submarine development. Burke's support was crucial, as the United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
8320-434: The cancellation of Blue Streak made nuclear independence less likely. Labour also adopted a resolution supporting unilateral disarmament. Although Gaitskell opposed the resolution and it was reversed in 1961 in favour of continuing support of a general Western nuclear deterrent, the party's opposition to a British deterrent remained and became more prominent. Macmillan's government lost a series of by-elections in 1962, and
8448-418: The cleared pathway of bare wood in front of the boat's burnt prow. The work measures 5m by 13m by 5.5m. Politics were entwined in the subject matter of Hotere's art from an early stage. Hotere's Polaris series was a response to the 1984 threat of nuclear warheads due to the Polaris programme. When Aramoana , a wetland near his Port Chalmers home, was proposed as the site for an aluminium smelter , Hotere
8576-525: The components had to be ordered by May 1964. The Ministry of Aviation and the Admiralty therefore opted for the Mark 2 Mod 0 RES. To validate the design, a programme of nuclear tests was required, which was estimated to cost around £5.9 million. This was authorised by Douglas-Home on 28 November 1963. A series of underground tests were carried out at the Nevada Test Site in the United States, starting with Whetstone/Cormorant on 17 July 1964. The next test, Whetstone/Courser on 25 September 1964 failed due to
8704-417: The context of two-dimensional art. From 1968, Hotere began the series of works with which he is perhaps best known, the Black Paintings . In these works, black is used almost exclusively. In some works, strips of colour are placed against stark black backgrounds in a style reminiscent of Barnett Newman . In other black paintings, stark simple crosses appear in the gloom, black on black. Though minimalist ,
8832-448: The course, some officers still turned down the opportunity to command a Polaris boat, even though it ended their careers. The Royal Navy adopted the US Navy practice of having two crews for each boat, but instead of calling them the "Gold" and "Blue" crews as in the US Navy, they were known as the "Port" and "Starboard" crews. The commanders of the first boat, HMS Resolution , were appointed in October 1965. Commander Michael Henry commanded
8960-433: The early 1970s. The Chiefs of Staff Committee therefore recommended the purchase of the American Skybolt , an air-launched ballistic missile , with Polaris as a possible successor in the 1970s. The British government decided to cancel Blue Streak if it could acquire Skybolt. The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan , met with President Dwight Eisenhower at Camp David in March 1960, and arranged to buy Skybolt. In return,
9088-442: The effectiveness, cost and development time of Polaris compared with that of Blue Streak and the V-bomber force. The working party indeed saw clear advantages in Polaris. At this point, the Minister of Defence , Duncan Sandys , requested a paper on Polaris, and was given one that strongly argued the case for Polaris. Sandys was cautious about Polaris, as it was still under development, so its costs were uncertain. The Air Ministry
9216-514: The entire missile. This drove debate about the number of decoys that were required. The Chief of the Defence Staff, Field Marshal Sir Michael Carver suggested giving up on the "Moscow criterion" and re-targeting Polaris to devastate less strongly defended cities. This was regarded as politically and militarily problematic, but was reluctantly accepted. At the same time, the government elected to press on with Chevaline. Another test, Anvil/Banon,
9344-514: The garden include Russell Moses , Shona Rapira Davies , and Chris Booth . Member of the Order of New Zealand The Order of New Zealand is the highest honour in the New Zealand royal honours system , created "to recognise outstanding service to the Crown and people of New Zealand in a civil or military capacity". It was instituted by royal warrant on 6 February 1987. The order is modelled on
9472-415: The government had already spent £1.5 million upgrading the yard's facilities. The only concern was whether the large Polaris boats could navigate the shallow Walney Channel . A formal letter of intent was sent to Vickers on 18 February, and its selection as lead yard was publicly announced on 11 March 1963. The question then naturally arose as to whether Vickers should build all the Polaris boats. Given
9600-515: The initial decision to build four Polaris boats was taken in January 1963, neither the financial nor the operational implications of this decision were certain, so an option to acquire a fifth boat was provided for, with a decision to be taken later in the year. By September 1963, CPE came to the conclusion that a fifth boat was absolutely necessary. Due to the required refit cycles, a five boat force would, at certain times, only have one boat at sea. Given
9728-627: The latter, although it was still under development and not expected to enter service until August 1964, as the deterrent would remain credible for much longer. The decision was endorsed by the First Lord of the Admiralty , Lord Carrington , in May 1963, and was officially made by Thorneycroft on 10 June 1963. While the Zuckerman mission was in Washington, R. J. Daniel of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors led
9856-473: The launch was delayed by half an hour due to a protest by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament , the falling tide left insufficient clearance, and the boat became stuck in the mud. The more experienced Vickers yard worked faster than Cammell Laird, and despite labour problems, Repulse was commissioned on 28 September 1968, before Renown on 15 November 1968. This achievement was all the more remarkable because
9984-543: The main reasons. He argued that the UK's dependence on the United States through the purchase of Polaris rendered it unfit to be a member of the EEC. The US policy of attempting to force the UK into their MLF proved to be a failure in light of this decision, and there was little enthusiasm for it from other NATO allies. By 1965, the MLF concept began fading away. Instead, the NATO Nuclear Planning Group gave NATO members
10112-458: The majority of voters agreed with his position. The Labour Party election manifesto called for the Nassau Agreement to be renegotiated, and on 5 October 1964, the leader of the Labour Party , Harold Wilson , criticised the independent British deterrent as neither independent, nor British, nor a deterrent. Douglas-Home narrowly lost to Wilson. In office, Labour retained Polaris, and assigned
10240-476: The meetings was normally agreed about three weeks beforehand via an exchange of teletype messages, with position papers exchanged about a week beforehand. Meetings were normally held over three days. Initially the JSTG met quarterly, but this was reduced to three times a year in 1965. The flow of information tended to be towards the UK. The JSTG was not an adversarial forum, but from the start there were disagreements over
10368-417: The nuclear deterrent away from the densely populated UK and out to sea had considerable appeal in the UK. It not only implicitly addressed the drawbacks of Blue Streak in that it was not vulnerable to a pre-emptive nuclear strike, but invoked the traditional role of the Royal Navy, and its second-strike capability made it a more credible deterrent. In February 1958, Mountbatten created a working party to examine
10496-485: The port's facilities were expanded, part of the bluff was removed, including the area of Hotere's studio (after strenuous objection from many of the town's residents). Part of the bluff close to the removed portion is now an award-winning sculpture garden, the Hotere Garden Oputae , organised in 2005 by Hotere and featuring works by both him and by other noted New Zealand modern sculptors. Other sculptors with work in
10624-629: The procession of the King and Queen at the beginning of the ceremony. The insignia is made up of an oval medallion of the coat of arms of New Zealand in gold and coloured enamel, worn on a white and ochre ribbon around the neck for men or a bow for women on their left shoulder. Polaris (UK nuclear programme) The United Kingdom's Polaris programme , officially named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System , provided its first submarine -based nuclear weapons system . Polaris
10752-468: The reactor circuits. Their removal set the programme back two months. The Cammell Laird boats had a reputation for not being as well built as those of Vickers, which was a factor in the subsequent 1969 decision by the Treasury and the Royal Navy to restrict future nuclear submarine construction to a single yard. Revenge and the hunter-killer HMS Conqueror were the last built at Cammell Laird. When
10880-429: The relationship between the Polaris programme and the hunter-killer programme. At this time point, Valiant was under construction, but the second boat of the class, HMS Warspite , was yet to be laid down at Barrow. The possibility of the two projects competing for resources was foreseen, but the Admiralty elected to continue with its construction. The interdependence between the two projects extended well beyond
11008-628: The scope of the Polaris Sales Agreement, which the staff of CPE saw as open-ended, but that of SPO saw as limited in nature. The choice of Vickers-Armstrongs as shipbuilder was a foregone conclusion, as its yard at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria was the only one in the UK with experience in nuclear-powered submarine construction. The firm was thoroughly familiar with the heightened requirements nuclear-powered submarine construction entailed in terms of cleanliness, safety and quality control, and
11136-484: The shipyard; Valiant would be the first boat powered by the Rolls-Royce pressurised water reactor , which would also be used in the new Polaris ballistic missile submarines. In early 1963 the reactor was still in the prototype stage at Dounreay . The overlap between the two projects was sufficiently substantial that in May 1963 it was decided that CPE would be responsible for both. The Joint Steering Task Group (JSTG)
11264-554: The size of the yard and its labour force, and the desired speed of construction, the Admiralty decided that Vickers would build two boats, and the others would be built elsewhere. Tenders were invited from two firms with experience in building conventional submarines, Cammell Laird in Birkenhead , and Scotts in Greenock , on 25 March. Cammell Laird was chosen, and a letter of intent was sent on 7 May 1963. Some £1.6 million of new equipment
11392-531: The standard 56-day US Navy patrol cycle, two boats would be on station 250 days a year. There was also no margin for the possibility of the temporary interruption to service of one boat due to an accident. From an operational point of view, having two boats on patrol meant there was a capability to destroy twenty cities; one would only be capable of destroying seven or eight, based on an assumption of 70 per cent reliability, and Leningrad and Moscow requiring two and four missiles respectively. Two boats also complicate
11520-457: The task of missile defence, as the missiles come from two different directions. The purchase of an additional boat did not necessarily require that of sixteen more missiles, nor even for two more crews, and a second construction line at Cammell Laird permitted work on a fifth boat to proceed without impacting schedules for the other boats. The fifth boat was estimated to cost £18 million; cancellation charges would be less than £1 million. The matter
11648-430: The technologies required for a ballistic missile submarine—a long-range solid propellant rocket, a light-weight thermonuclear warhead, a compact missile guidance system , and an inertial navigation system for the submarine—did not exist in 1955. A turning point came during Project Nobska in the summer of 1956, when Edward Teller predicted that a 270-kilogram (600 lb) warhead would become available by 1963. This
11776-412: The three warheads with multiple decoys, chaff , and other defensive countermeasures , in what was known as a Penetration Aid Carrier (PAC). It was the most technically complex defence project ever undertaken in the United Kingdom. The system also involved "hardening" the warheads—making them resistant to the effects of a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The Americans used a material known as 3DPQ,
11904-411: The transfer of submarine reactor technology was incorporated in the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement , which allowed the UK to acquire nuclear weapons systems from the United States, thereby restoring the nuclear Special Relationship . One of Burke's first actions as CNO was to call for a report on the progress of ballistic missile research. The US Navy was involved in a cooperative venture with
12032-434: The works, as with those of most good abstractionists, have a redolent poetry of their own. The simple markings speak of transcendence, of religion, or peace. The themes of the black paintings extended to later works, notably the colossal Black Phoenix (1984–88) , constructed out of the burnt remains of a fishing boat. This major installation incorporates the prow of the boat flanked by burnt planks of wood. Other planks form
12160-481: Was already changing with the ascension of officers like Mackenzie and Luce. In March 1963, it was decided that the Polaris boats would be based at Faslane on the Firth of Clyde , not far from the US Navy's base at Holy Loch. The conventional submarines of the 3rd Submarine Squadron already had a forward base there, with jetties, facilities and the submarine depot ship HMS Maidstone . The design and construction of
12288-789: Was accepted that training of the first two crews at least would have to be conducted in the United States, and arrangements for this were made with SPO. SPO also convinced the US Air Force that the Polaris Sales Agreement meant that the Royal Navy should have access to the Eastern Test Range, for which it was to be charged the same fee as the US Navy. The US Navy had two training facilities, at Dam Neck in Virginia Beach, Virginia , and at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu , Hawaii . They were not identical, and were oriented towards training in maintenance rather than operations. Shepard's group pushed for
12416-551: Was appointed to the Order of New Zealand for services to New Zealand. Hotere was born in Mitimiti , close to the Hokianga Harbour in the Northland Region , one of 15 children. When Hotere was 9, his older brother Jack enlisted in the army. Jack was killed in action in Italy in 1943. Hotere received his secondary education at Hato Petera College , Auckland, where he studied from 1946 to 1949. After early art training at
12544-596: Was codenamed "Reggie". This became known as the ET.317 . Its development involved an increase of about 500 staff at Aldermaston compared to that anticipated for Skybolt, with 4,500 staff expected to be working on nuclear weapons by 1969. When it came to the Re-Entry System (RES), the US Navy was using the Mark 2 Mod 0 RES, but had a new version, the Mark 2 Mod 1 under development. In order to meet Polaris in-service deadline of May 1968,
12672-532: Was conducted in Nevada on 26 August 1976. By 1979, the cost had risen to £935 million, with test firings conducted from the Eastern Test Range and the Woomera Test Range , including three off Cape Canaveral by Renown , along with another series of nuclear tests in Nevada. Chevaline's existence, along with its formerly secret codename, was revealed by the Secretary of State for Defence, Francis Pym , during
12800-463: Was conducted on 26 October 1963. Most of the problems encountered involved failures of the re-entry body to separate correctly. The A-3 became operational on 28 September 1964, when USS Daniel Webster commenced her first operational patrol. In the wake of the decision to acquire the A-3, a US-UK Joint Re-Entry Systems Working Group (JRSWG) was created to examine issues surrounding the warhead and re-entry vehicle. The Americans revealed that work
12928-549: Was considered by the Cabinet Defence and Overseas Policy Committee on 25 February 1964, and then by the full Cabinet later that morning, and the decision was taken to approve the fifth boat, provided the money could be found elsewhere in the defence budget. After Wilson took office, one of the first acts of the incoming Secretary of State for Defence, Denis Healey , was to ask the Navy for the case for building five Polaris boats. This
13056-469: Was controversy when this project became public knowledge in 1980, as it had been kept secret by four successive governments while incurring huge expenditure. Polaris patrols continued until May 1996, by which time the phased handover to the replacement Trident system had been completed. During the early part of the Second World War , the UK had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys . At
13184-399: Was declined; the British government wanted Polaris. Kennedy backed down and abandoned his attempts to persuade the UK to accept the MLF in return for Macmillan's promise to assign UK Polaris boats to NATO. The two leaders concluded the Nassau Agreement , which would see the purchase of US missiles to serve aboard UK-built submarines, on 21 December 1962. This statement was later formalised as
13312-418: Was designated as the refit yard for the Polaris boats, as works were already underway there to support Dreadnought . HM Dockyard, Chatham , was subsequently upgraded to handle the hunter-killer submarines, and Rosyth was reserved for the 10th Submarine Squadron , as the Polaris boats became. To train the required crews, a Royal Navy Polaris School (RNPS) was built adjacent to the base at Faslane, although it
13440-503: Was discussed. While the cost was a factor, the main obstacle was political, and the Wilson government publicly ruled out the purchase of Poseidon in June 1967. Without an agreement on improvement, the Special Relationship began to decay. The Americans were unwilling to share information about warhead vulnerability unless the British were going to proceed to applying it. The result was Chevaline , an improved front end (IFE) that replaced one of
13568-677: Was established by Article II of the Polaris Sales Agreement. It was modelled after the Steering Task Group that oversaw the Special Projects Office. It met for the first time in Washington on 26 June 1963. The respective liaison officers acted as the secretaries of the JSTG. These were appointed in April 1963, with Captain Peter La Niece taking up the position in Washington, and Captain Phil Rollings in London. The agenda for
13696-495: Was formally named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System . The Board of the Admiralty met on 24 December 1962 and decided to adopt Le Fanu's proposal that a special organisation be created to manage the project. It did not create a replica of SPO, however, but a smaller administrative and organisational cadre . Mackenzie, the Flag Officer Submarines (FOSM), was informed on 26 December 1962 that he would be appointed
13824-597: Was furnished by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir David Luce , on 19 October 1964. The government was under considerable pressure to reduce annual defence expenditures below £2 billion, and Healey considered whether three boats would be sufficient. Luce and Mountbatten advised that it would not. Wilson was aware that the government had only a narrow majority, and that Douglas-Home's attack on his party's nuclear deterrent policy had cost votes. Cabinet finally decided on 12 January 1965 that there should be four boats. The decision
13952-501: Was in progress to add penetration aids to the re-entry vehicle, but promised that it would not have any effect on the interface between the missile and the UK re-entry vehicle. The British team did not think they were necessary, and in the end the Americans never deployed them with the A-3. The initial assumption at the Admiralty was that the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston would produce
14080-415: Was in service from 1968 to 1996. Polaris itself was an operational system of four Resolution -class ballistic missile submarines , each armed with 16 Polaris A-3 ballistic missiles. Each missile was able to deliver three ET.317 thermonuclear warheads . This configuration was later upgraded to carry two warheads hardened against the effects of radiation and nuclear electromagnetic pulse , along with
14208-657: Was much lighter than the 730-kilogram (1,600 lb) warhead of the Jupiter, and led the US Navy to pull out of the joint Jupiter project in late 1956 in order to concentrate on the development of a solid-fuel rocket , which became Polaris . In May 1958, Burke arranged for the appointment of a Royal Navy liaison officer, Commander Michael Simeon, on the SPO staff. In 1955, the SPO staff consisted of 45 officers and 45 civilians; by mid-1961, it had grown to 200 officers and 667 civilians. By then, over 11,000 contractors were involved, and it had
14336-563: Was necessary in order to be in immediate contact with the Admiralty, the ministers, and the key departments. He was initially given two rooms and a closet at the Admiralty. Most of the Polaris Executive was located in Bath, Somerset , where the Admiralty's technical and logistics departments had been relocated in 1938, "the connection between bath, water and boats having not escaped the administrative minds in Whitehall." Initially they were accommodated in
14464-464: Was not significantly greater than £235 million in April 1972 (equivalent to £3.37 billion in 2023). What disturbed the committee more was that a major project had gone on for a decade without any disclosure of its costs to Parliament or any requirement that they should be. The range of the Chevaline system was 1,950 nautical miles (3,610 km) compared to 2,500-nautical-mile (4,600 km) range of
14592-482: Was noted that while the missile was limited in range, the submarine could roam the oceans, and could attack China, for example. With the cancellation of Blue Streak in the air, the British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group (BNDSG) produced a study on 23 December 1959 that argued that Polaris was expensive and unproven, and given the time it would take to build the boats, could not be deployed before
14720-559: Was officially announced on 15 February. One important matter that SPO raised was that A-3 production would in due course be closed down, and the missile replaced by a new model under development then known as the B3, which eventually became the Poseidon . Thus, a final decision on the number of missiles and spare parts was required. This gravely concerned the British government. If the USN upgraded to Poseidon,
14848-510: Was opposed to this on the grounds that it would unduly disrupt the hunter-killer submarine programme, and it would add more new features to a design that already had enough. The chosen design was suggested by Daniel's superior, Sidney Palmer. The reactor section would be similar to that of Valiant , which would be joined with a machinery space to the American-designed but mainly British-built missile compartment. The forward section would be of
14976-504: Was required to prepare the yard for Polaris work. Two berths and the jetty were rebuilt, and works were also necessary on the roads and river wall. A 9.4-metre (31 ft) cofferdam was built to allow construction of a new slipway and other works to be carried out in dry rather than tidal conditions. New facilities were also added in Barrow, and the Walney Channel was dredged. Traditional battleship or battlecruiser names were chosen for
15104-490: Was shaken by the Profumo affair . In October 1963, Macmillan fell ill with what was initially feared to be inoperable prostate cancer , and he took the opportunity to resign on the grounds of ill-health. He was succeeded by Alec Douglas-Home , who campaigned on the UK's nuclear deterrent in the 1964 election . While of low importance in the minds of the electorate, it was one on which Douglas-Home felt passionately, and on which
15232-595: Was suspended in October 1952 to conserve plutonium production for nuclear weapons, and by 1954 the Royal Navy had concluded that it would not be possible until the 1960s. The US Navy 's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus became operational on 17 January 1955. One reason the Royal Navy lagged behind its American counterpart was the lack of a high-ranking champion who would push nuclear submarine development. This changed when Admiral Lord Mountbatten became First Sea Lord in April 1955. In June he secured
15360-580: Was tested in Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952. During the 1950s, the UK's nuclear deterrent was based around the V-bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF), but developments in radar and surface-to-air missiles made it clear that bombers were becoming increasingly vulnerable, and would be unlikely to penetrate Soviet airspace in the 1970s. Free-fall nuclear weapons were losing credibility as
15488-680: Was the only significant departure from Le Fanu's original blueprint. Some staff were assigned to the Polaris Executive and responsible only to the CPE; but there were also "allocated staff", who were seconded to the Polaris Executive, but who remained responsible to another organisation, such as the Directors-General of Ships and Weapons; and "designated staff", who were not employed on the Polaris project full-time, and remained part of their parent organisations. Mackenzie established his own office and that of his immediate staff in London, which he considered
15616-488: Was the same as the number of Skybolt missiles, which were considered sufficient to devastate forty cities. To achieve this capability, the BNDSG calculated that this would require eight Polaris submarines, each with 16 missiles with one-megaton warheads. It was subsequently decided to halve the number of missiles, and therefore submarines, based on a decision that the ability to destroy twenty Soviet cities would have nearly as great
15744-415: Was there any need to conserve battery power, as the reactor supplied enough power for a small town. A Polaris boat had a crew of 14 officers and 129 ratings. Every sailor had his own bunk, so there was no hot bunking . Meals were served in a dining hall. The crew included a doctor and supply officers. Before commencing an eight-week patrol, a submarine was stocked with enough food for 143 men. Supplies for
15872-566: Was to take the incomplete nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine HMS Valiant , cut it in half, and insert the Polaris missile compartment in its midsection. This was a path that the Americans had taken with the George Washington class in order to build ships as quickly as possible in order to address the missile gap , the purported numerical superiority of the Soviet Union's missile force, which turned out to be illusory. Daniel
16000-529: Was uncertain about the legality of transferring such technology to the UK, and Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover , the head of the US Navy's nuclear propulsion project, was opposed. But the United States Department of Defense supported the British request, and Mountbatten won Rickover over during a visit to the UK in August 1956. Rickover withdrew his objections in early 1957. In December 1957, Rickover proposed that Westinghouse be permitted to sell
16128-484: Was understandably alarmed, circulating a paper that refuted the Admiralty 's position point by point, attacking Polaris as having the same striking power but having less accuracy and a smaller warhead than Blue Streak, at 20 times the cost. The US Navy had already polished the counter-arguments, noting that second strike weapons only had to target cities, for which Polaris warhead's size and accuracy were adequate. Moreover, it
16256-591: Was unpredictable. The Treasury costed a four-boat Polaris fleet at £314 million by 1972–1973. A Cabinet Defence Committee meeting on 23 January 1963 approved the plan for four boats, with the Minister of Defence, Peter Thorneycroft noting that four boats would be cheaper and faster to build than eight. A mission led by Sir Solly Zuckerman , the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence , left for
16384-542: Was vocal in his opposition, and produced the Aramoana series of paintings. Similarly, he produced series protesting against a controversial rugby tour by New Zealand of apartheid -era South Africa ( Black Union Jack ) in 1981, and the sinking of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior ( Black rainbow ) in 1985. Later, his reactions to Middle East politics resulted in works such as Jerusalem, Jerusalem and This might be
#636363