Under Pressure and entry into Britain's Polaris force

Richard Humphreys begins with the deceptively peaceful geography of the Gare Loch and the guarded naval complex at Faslane. HMS Resolution sits at the center of a base designed to support and protect Britain's Polaris deterrent. The memoir emphasizes that the submarine's weapons carried more explosive force than all the bombs dropped during the Second World War, confronting an 18-year-old sailor with responsibility on an almost incomprehensible scale. Security vetting tested politics, family connections, possible vulnerabilities, and attitudes toward the Troubles as well as the ability to keep operational secrets. The decisive question was whether he would be willing to help use the weapons, linking personal reliability directly to the credibility of nuclear deterrence.