Ron Gordon – Climbing into the missile tubes on patrol to check springs

That’s the Senior Rates Mess. You’re in that Mess, it’s where you eat, you talk to your mates, you socialise, you watch your movies etc. You don’t feel any motion ‘cos you’re down at 400 feet or whatever, 300 feet.

You go to weapon system readiness test now and again, you go and do your Watch Keeping, you do your hobbies, you do your fitness and all that sort of stuff. It becomes a routine, and you don’t realise what you’ve got.

You forget all about it, but the only time I ever used to become very aware of it was because I was in a Missile Compartment, we used to do these … what happens, you’ve got this rocket that sits inside this metal tube, and it’s ready there waiting to be fired.

There’s a gas generator on the side which if it ignites, it sends this hot air underneath that mixes with water and causes expanding steam and ‘zzzit’ the rocket is launched.

So, whilst you’re at sea and you’re not launching the weapons, they’ve got four massive, big liquid springs underneath there which the rockets can bounce on to stop any vibration affecting the gimble of the gyro in the rocket head.

So, every once a patrol, I used to have to get into each tube, go in there with this liquid spring gun and the other guy would sit outside and he would pressurise it and I had to attach it to the liquid spring to get it up to 19,000 psi, just to check that it would work ‘cos when you launch, you have to make those springs rigid so it’s a rigid platform.

And you’re under there and you’re looking up at four massive rocket nozzles and you can see little bits of stuff dripping down from it and that’s when you realise, oh my God, this is for real. That’s the only time.

Simon: And they are armed and ready to go?

Oh they’re armed and ready to go, yeah.