Originally Posted by
MENELAUS
Yes extraordinary indeed. So extraordinary it sounds like bollocks.
Reactor ( kettle ). No tunnels anywhere. Although there is a separate access. The opening of which notified Burghfield /Aldermaston immediately. Interesting aside, also the venue for Sunday service.
My friend - it is not bollocks.
I will believe Peter Hennessy and James Jinks over you any day of the week.
The book is excellent, and meticulously researched.
You should read it.
I'm now going to go and find the exact anecdote...
EDIT: Page 335 - The boat was HMS Valiant in 1977.
And the quote, from the late Vice-Admiral Sir John Coward KCB, DSO - who was Captain at the time.
"Coward went back to the reinforced tunnel over the top of the reactor compartment in the bottom of which was a glass window that could be used to see into the unmanned reactor compartment.
'It looked like a huge cathedral of machinery, brightly lit, lovely and quiet, but you can't get in it because of the radiation,' recalled Coward.
`But we couldn't see any of that because five feet below the window was the shimmering surface of the Mediterranean.
We had embarked god knows how many hundred tons of seawater into the reactor compartment.'
A salt water services pipe situated in the reactor compartment had fractured, causing sea water to flood into the compartment..."
Page 357 "...the fact that Valiant had continued to operate while under such conditions was a testament to the designers of the PWR1 nuclear reactor... `...it was so well constructed, so well insulated and so well clad that it didn't mind running in seawater, ' said Coward.
Separately accounted here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Valiant_(S102)
Again, I would highly recommend
this excellent book.
The access the authors got in writing it is amazing - on board during a Perisher course for example.
They also capture in meticulous detail the geopolitics of the UK trying to convince Rickover to share nuclear secrets.
That puts AUKUS in perspective...