Undiscovered Scotland

 

"Bubbleheads, SEALs and Wizards: America's Scottish Bastion in the Cold War" by D.G. Mackay is an outstanding book that fills important gaps in Scotland's relatively recent history.

You don't have to travel around the country for long before you encounter echoes and memories of the huge presence of US military personnel in Scotland during the Cold War. It's hard to tie the reality of what you see today at Holy Loch near Dunoon on the Cowal Peninsula with stories and photographs ot the nuclear submarine base that was once here. And we'd driven past the airfield at Kirknewton, just west of Edinburgh, many times before realising that it, too, once had an important role in the Cold War. There are similar echoes to be found at Edzell in Angus; in Thurso; and at the airfields at Prestwick in Ayrshire and Machrihanish near the tip of the Kintyre peninsula. Indeed I once, in the early 1970s, spend at week at what was then RAF Machrihanish on an air cadet summer camp. It was only when I read D.G. Mackay's chapter about Machrihanish that I began to understand aspects of that week that had seemed puzzling at the time.

And that really is the point. The author has clearly consulted every available source and talked to very many of those directly involved in putting together this account. Many readers who can remember Scotland in the decades of the Cold War will share my "Ah, so that's what was going on..." moment when I read the chapter about Machrihanish. This is a part of Scotish history that many of us lived through and this book illuminates its subject in a way that will be of lasting interest and value to anyone who cares about the story of Scotland.

The publisher's description sets the scene: "The American military presence in Scotland during the Cold War was greater than in either of the World Wars, bringing with it the largest peace-time number of foreign military personnel in Scotland’s history. This military power was delivered by individuals – the forgotten heroes. They worked to high standards of professionalism and most had no true concept of the danger they faced from the Soviet threat. This reality was only ever confronted during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The author, a former Cold War special forces officer, brings his personal expertise into play, examining this intriguing story by reaching out to more than one hundred veterans and expert witnesses."