12/9/2023 0 Comments Us navy submarine base scotlandNavy Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Rhode Island (SSBN 740) arrived at Her Majesty’s Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde, Scotland (Faslane) for a scheduled port visit, July 1, 2022. John Thomson, 80, Dunoon’s last mayor before the post was eliminated in 1975, refuses to be drawn into the doom and gloom.The U.S. Gillette is president of the 65-member Officers’ Wives Club, which organizes an annual art show and last year donated more than $10,000 to local charities. Trudy Gillette was thrilled when her American husband, Keith, got a second tour as one of three Navy dentists at Holy Loch, and she isn’t keen to leave their spacious house, near a memorial to the Lamont clan slaughtered by the Campbells in 1646. At least they could have given them a few years, but we’ll just be out of here-boom.” “People don’t realize we feel real bad,” Tim adds, between pulls on a bottle of beer at Courtney’s bar where the sailors’ softball trophies are on display. “My girlfriend and me are like this right now,” he says, holding his hands wide apart. He fell for one of the many Scottish girls who come hunting in Dunoon’s bars and now has a 2-year-old child. “Most businesses will have to cut back, not necessarily pare down staff but cut back on some of the merchandise,” says a shopkeeper in Bells of Dunoon, where many sailors buy their tweed Sherlock Holmes caps or trace their ancestral tartans.Īcross the street at the Argyll Hotel, owner Murray Fletcher says, “We will recover, but it’s a sad fact of life.”Ī 31-year-old Navy postal clerk from Garden Grove, Calif., who wanted to be called Tim, has been in Dunoon for five years. Taxis wait at the end of the long, guarded pier for sailors coming ashore to shop, drink or just kill time.Īt $5 a trip into Dunoon, the sailors support 130 cabs-more per capita than anywhere in Britain, says the Taxi Owners’ Assn. Almost all of the sailors work on the floating base and 1,100 single sailors live there too. We understand in other places, like the Philippines, they have done so.”Ībout two miles from Dunoon’s center, Navy boats ferry sailors to Los Alamos and the tender ship, USS Simon Lake, anchored in the bay. Department of Defense has a moral obligation to provide some compensation. “We feel, irrespective of the legal agreement, the U. “It’s a devastating blow to the economy,” says Ken MacTaggert, an economist with the development board. The base is worth $22 million a year to Dunoon, which is isolated by the Clyde from Scotland’s commercial mainstream. The many Victorian guest houses dotting the mile-long Alexandra Parade once drew vacationers from Glasgow, 25 miles to the east by ferry and road, or 75 miles exclusively by road.ĭunoon now depends on the Americans, who directly or indirectly employ 20% of the local residents, according to a report by the Highlands and Islands Development Board. The rolling Argyllshire hills, the moderate climate, and the long sunsets reflected in the channel to the Irish Sea, provide excellent hiking, glorious views and picturesque seclusion. “Dunoon has been used and abused by the American authorities for 30 years,” he says.īefore March, 1961, Dunoon survived on a bit of logging, some fishing, but mostly tourism. “We never wanted the bases and they have gone away and left us in a pretty bad position.”īrian Wilson, a Dunoon native and the Labor Party’s spokesman for Scottish affairs, wants nothing from the Americans but their absence. “I did a little jig for joy when I heard the nuclear submarines were going,” says James Sillars, a member of Parliament for the Scottish National Party. Now that it’s happening, some are complaining about the financial suffering and demanding U. Driving the nuclear subs out of Holy Loch has been the dream of some left-wing Labor and Scottish National party members for decades.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |