Deceptively peaceful. But the epicentre of one hell of a potential bang. Glen Douglas munitions depot (Patrick Mackie/geograph)
Let’s be honest. For all of our so-called ‘special relationship’ with the United States, it does tend to be one where the bigger and more powerful of the two nations takes advantage of the situation wherever and whenever they can.
Especially when it comes to facilities, military or otherwise, that might be first, second and third on any potential aggressors wish list.
Where, for example, did the United States Air Force choose to deploy many of its cruise missiles during the first Cold War?
At RAF Greenham Common and RAF Molesworth.
Then there was the attack made by US aircraft on Libya in 1986, one that, according to reports at the time, caused 40 deaths, many of whom were civilians. Those raids were launched from RAF Lakenheath and RAF Upper Heyford, an act of aggression that was later condemned by the United Nations General Assembly who considered it, “…a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law”.
Even today, US nuclear weapons are still stationed and maintained at bases in Great Britain, a situation which, as recently as 2019, led to leading Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev stating (and making no attempt whatsoever to hide the identity of the ‘host’ nation he was talking about), “…those who place missiles automatically and willingly, become a nuclear target with (just) several minutes of flight time”.
So let’s be honest. This small island is seen as nothing more than a convenient warehouse by its so-called ally. A wet and draughty warehouse at that but one that is well out of the harms way-if you’re a US President, of course.
None of them would, of course, ever have actively sought a Third World War but, had the balloon ever gone up, they would, at least, have got some comfort from the fact it would have taken place in and around Western Europe rather than “the land of the free and the home of the brave”.
‘Special’ relationship indeed.
The one-time NATO defence munitions department at Glen Douglas is a sizeable and complex facility that took four years to build and which, from 1989 onwards, served the alliance as a wartime ammunition depot with, it is quoted, around 40,000 tons worth of assorted weaponry-including missiles, depth charges and conventional shells tucked away on the premises.
Glen Douglas. Beautiful. That’s Loch Lomond in the distance. But it all hides a rather dark secret nearby (Alan O’Dowd/geograph)
Just take a moment or two now to think about that figure. And then, if you will, proceed, briefly to my earlier blog entry about the SS Richard Montgomery, the partially submerged shipwreck that lays on sandbank off the Essex coast.
I write, in that piece, of the possible damage that might be caused if the estimated 3,500 tons of explosive ordinance that remains on that ship was ever to go off, the bit that says, “…according to a study that was done by explosive experts, the biggest ever non-nuclear explosion in the history of mankind…”.
That’s for ‘just’ 3500 tons of explosive.
Now multiply that number by around 11.5 and visualise the magnitude of the bang if DM Glen Douglas had ever blown up?
All very simplistic of course. But the fact remains that having that amount of explosive material in one place is not good for anyone. Least of all, in this case, for much of Bute, which would, in an instant, been pretty much converted into obsidian.
Whilst they’d have seen and felt the explosion and shock wave in Glasgow if Glen Douglas had gone off-and Glasgow is nearly 40 miles away.
Indeed, it’s probably fair to say that, if it had ever happened, superheated parts of Bute might well have ended up tumbling back down to earth over Glasgow.
MD Glen Douglas can’t be missed-to either the casual observer or an enemy spy satellite. It covers an area of nearly 700 acres with around 60 storage facilities contained within, each of which are built into the side of a hill.
It is now used exclusively by the British military (which, given repeated cuts to the MoD from Government means there is probably nothing more than a couple of filing cabinets and some dried up bottles of Tipex stored behind it’s formidable doors) and has, in more recent years, dispatched stored munitions to a jetty along the edge of nearby Loch Long which is frequently visited by both Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels.
Operationally quieter than it was then. Which means the time to be worried would be if the amount of both traffic and personnel seen in and around the nearby B833 was ever to become a lot higher.
Because places like this never close.
An entrance gate to RAF Sculthorpe near Fakenham in Norfolk. Supposedly closed and decommissioned. Supposedly….. (Richard Humphrey/geograph)
They are forever in cold storage, ready, if required, to assume their previous roles at very short notice indeed.
Very VERY short notice.