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 (206) 365-7865 Glen Miller 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, 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 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 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 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 from State agencies that restrict access and development near the submarine base, and with a series of federally established security zones 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 September 4th peace flotilla represents an unending resistance to the madness of the nuclear arms race.
