The Newcomen Society presents The Polaris Missile System: Development and Operations, a talk by John Boyes.

The atom bombs dropped on Japan heralded new military possibilities as the post-war world became the Cold War. Seeing with great foresight the potential for developing nuclear power for the US Navy, Capt. Hyman Rickover pushed forward a research programme which culminated with the launch of the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear powered submarine. Still dependant on complex liquid fuels the US Navy, already partnering the Army in developing a ballistic missile for both services, withdrew from the alliance when solid fuels of sufficient energy became a practical proposition, setting up its own project under the leadership of RAdm. William Raborn. Thus was born the Polaris weapon system with the first missile-armed, nuclear powered submarine leaving on patrol in 1958. Forty other SSBNs were to follow and when Britain’s Blue Streak and Skybolt plans were cancelled, Harold Macmillan and President Kennedy met in the Bahamas sealing a deal which saw Polaris also being supplied to the Royal Navy.

John Boyes was born in Edinburgh in 1947. Educated at Rugby School, he qualified as a chartered accountant in 1973 and thereafter pursued a career in the motor industry until his retirement in 2005. Always interested in the military, he served for seventeen years in the Territorial Army’s Media Operations Group. His particular interest is the history of missiles and he published his first book on the topic, Project Emily: Thor IRBM and the RAF, in 2008. He is the former treasurer of the RAF Historical Society and of the Bomber Command Association, whose Memorial to the 55,573 RAF personnel killed in the Second World War was unveiled in 2012.