Peace flotilla to visit waterfront of Trident nuclear submarine base in Hood Canal on September 4, 2024
Posted: 30th August 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Peace flotilla to visit waterfront of Trident nuclear submarine base in Hood Canal on September 4, 2024
Contact: Helen Jaccard, Golden Rule coordinator (206) 992-6364 Glen Milner (206) 365-7865 Day of the event (206) 979-8319
Activists will stage a water-based nonviolent protest and witness for peace in Hood Canal at the Trident nuclear submarine base in Washington State. Peace activists will travel along the Bangor waterfront where Trident missiles armed with thermonuclear warheads are loaded onto submarines and where submarines are resupplied for ballistic missile patrols in the Pacific Ocean.
The witness for peace at the nuclear submarine base marks the recent (79th) commemoration of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
WHAT: Peace activists will participate in a nonviolent waterborne protest at the Bangor nuclear submarine base waterfront. This is the third year since 2016 for the demonstration, called “Boats by Bangor.”
WHEN: Wednesday, September 4th, around 5:00pm, kayaks enter Hood Canal south of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor at King Spit to meet the historic peace boat Golden Rule. The Golden Rule, will lead the flotilla to the Bangor Trident base.
WHERE: The flotilla will travel along the entire length of the waterfront of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, including the Delta Pier and the two Explosives Handling Wharves at Bangor where Trident submarines are maintained and nuclear warheads and Trident D-5 missiles are loaded on submarines. Participants will not be risking arrest in Hood Canal. Participants will gather afterwards for a beach party at a nearby beach.
The peace flotilla, titled “Boats by Bangor”, will feature the original peace ship, the Golden Rule <http://www.vfpgoldenruleproject.org/> , that set sail in 1958 to the South Pacific to stop nuclear bomb testing in the atmosphere. A National Project of Veterans for Peace, the Golden Rule continues to inspire many peacemakers and peace ships around the world.
The flotilla is part of a continuing effort by activists to lift the veil of secrecy <http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/03/massive-deployment-of-us-wmd-spotlighted-by-peace-group> involving nuclear weapons in Puget Sound.
“We are sailing for a nuclear-free world and a peaceful, sustainable future,” says Gerry Condon, former president of Veterans For Peace. “Our mission is all the more urgent now that the two nuclear superpowers, the U.S. and Russia, are confronting one another in Ukraine, and nuclear-armed Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. These wars must end if we are to be spared from nuclear war.”
The Trident submarine base at Bangor employs the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons <https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-05/united-states-nuclear-weapons-2024> in the world and is the home port for 8 of the Navy’s 14 Trident nuclear powered submarines. More than 1,000 nuclear warheads are deployed on Trident D-5 missiles on SSBN submarines based at Bangor or stored at Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific (SWFPAC) at the Bangor submarine base.
One Trident SSBN submarine at Bangor is estimated to carry about 90 nuclear warheads. The W76 and W88 warheads <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00963402.2016.1145901> at Bangor are equal respectively to 100 kilotons and 455 kilotons of TNT in destructive force. One submarine deployed at Bangor is equal to approximately 1,000 Hiroshima sized nuclear bombs.
Hood Canal is tightly controlled by the Navy with multiple easements <http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/navy-stealthily-targets-hood-canal-development-2> from State agencies that restrict access and development near the submarine base, and with a series of federally established security zones <https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-33/chapter-I/subchapter-P/part-165/subpart-F/subject-group-ECFR6717aa4bc37eee6/section-165.1302> that are enforced by Coast Guard, Navy, and Marine Corps personnel. Participants in the flotilla do not intend to enter the federally designated exclusion zone around the Bangor waterfront.
THE FIRST PEACE WITNESS ON HOOD CANAL
The September 4th peace flotilla represents an unending resistance to the madness of the nuclear arms race. The first resistance on Hood Canal took place on August 12, 1982 when the first OHIO Class ballistic missile submarine, USS Ohio, entered the Hood Canal on its way to its homeport at the Bangor base. This was the end of its long journey from General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, where it was built, through the Panama Canal, and up the west coast of North America. The Ohio was the first of the new class of submarines – OHIO Class, also known as “Trident” for the new Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles built by Lockheed Martin Corporation, that the submarines carried in their launch tubes.
In the early morning hours a tiny peace flotilla with just two small sailboats and 20 tiny rowboats attempted to blockade the Ohio in an act of nonviolent resistance. They were met by a massive fleet of 99 Coast Guard vessels. Coast Guard cutters rammed the sailboats, and armed Coast Guard personnel boarded the boats, pointing weapons at resisters. Ships used water cannons against the small rowboats.
46 activists, knowing they were risking their lives. and could each face up to 10 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000, participated in the attempted nonviolent blockade. Miraculously, no one was harmed that day. Many onlookers and news reporters expressed shock and astonishment at the massive and violent reaction of the Navy and Coast Guard to our small nonviolent blockade. One reporter wrote that the arrests were so volatile, with so many heavy weapons trained on protesters, that “had a firecracker gone off at a critical moment, a massacre could have resulted.”
HISTORY OF THE GOLDEN RULE
From 1946 to 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, displacing the Indigenous inhabitants and spreading cancer-causing radiation around the globe. Concerned citizens called on the government to stop the nuclear weapons testing, but their letter-writing, protests and lobbying efforts went unheeded.
Finally, in 1958, four Quaker peace activists tried to sail the Golden Rule to the Marshall Islands to interfere with the atomic bomb tests. They departed from San Pedro Harbor in Los Angeles but were stopped in Honolulu, where the crew was arrested and prevented from completing their voyage. Their planned voyage was thwarted, but their mission was successful beyond their dreams. The arrests of the crew brought worldwide concern about the highly poisonous radiation that was even getting into mothers’ milk. In 1963, President Kennedy, along with leaders of the UK and the USSR, signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, banning nuclear testing in the air, in the water, or in space, but allowing it to continue underground.
THE REBIRTH OF A PEACE BOAT
In 2010 Golden Rule was found in northern California’s Humboldt Bay. It had a sunk in a storm and had a big hole in its side. Over the following five years, the historic wooden sailboat was lovingly restored by members of Veterans For Peace, along with Quakers and wooden boat lovers.
The Golden Rule’s original mission was also restored – sailing for a world free of nuclear weapons. Since 2015 the Golden Rule has plied the waters of the West Coast – from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon to California and Mexico, and even sailed to all the Hawaiian Islands. Last year, 2023, was the Golden Rule sailed on the “Great Loop,” all over the Midwestern, Southern and Northeastern United States, stopping in over 100 ports, including Havana, Cuba and Toronto, Canada.
Her 2024 voyage throughout the waters of the Pacific Northwest includes protests at the Bangor Trident Submarine Base 25 miles west of Seattle and at Seattle’s Fleet Week, as well as appearances in wooden boat shows in Victoria, British Columbia and Port Townsend, Washington.
MEDIA INTERVIEWS!
Golden Rule crew members are available for Radio, TV and Newspaper Interviews.
Please call Gerry Condon at 206-499-1220
or Helen Jaccard at 206-992-6364
or email [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> .