Navy Support Activity Forward Base Holy Loch Scotland Patch

From March 1961 until 1992, Holy Loch on the Firth of Clyde was home to Submarine Squadron 14 and Fleet Ballistic Missile Refit Site One, the first of the Navy's overseas ballistic missile submarine refit sites. The first tender, USS Proteus (AS-19), began the first Site One refit on 6 March 1961. A floating dry dock, Los Alamos (AFDB-7), arrived that June and stayed until February 1992. For two decades the shore side was administered by U.S. Naval Activities London, and in 1982 it became a command of its own, Naval Support Activity Forward Base, Holy Loch. That is the name on this patch, which places it in the last ten years of the American presence on the loch.

Five tenders held the job over three decades. Proteus came first, from 1961 to 1963. USS Hunley (AS-31) served from 1963 to 1966 and came back from 1982 to 1987, USS Simon Lake (AS-33) from 1966 to 1970 and again from 1987, USS Canopus (AS-34) from 1970 to 1975, and USS Holland (AS-32) from 1975 to 1982. Ballistic missile submarines came alongside between deterrent patrols for refit and stores, while Los Alamos handled the work that had to be done out of the water, including the first off-center docking of a Polaris submarine. Simon Lake was the last tender out, and the base closed in June 1992.

The patch is a 5-inch circle with a merrowed black edge and a white outer band. Navy Support Activity Forward Base arcs across the top in black, and HOLY LOCH, SCOTLAND runs along the bottom in capitals. The center scene is the loch itself: a gray submarine tender lying in blue water with a dark submarine moored alongside, and a pale wake trailing toward the viewer. Behind them rise the Cowal hills in green and rust, topped with white. Anyone who stood watch on a tender there will know the view.

The loch was a submarine base before the Americans came; during World War II the Royal Navy ran submarines there from the depot ship HMS Forth. For the U.S. Navy it was a forward post of the Cold War deterrent, where tender sailors kept the boats ready and submariners turned around for the next patrol. Generations of Navy families spent years of their lives on that shore, with Dunoon just down the road. The base closed in 1992, after the Cold War ended. Holy Loch is still how a lot of submariners and tender sailors measure their careers.

Frame it next to your dolphins and a photo of your tender, or sew it to the jacket you wear to SUBRON 14 and tender reunions. It also sits well beside a cruise book, and it makes a gift for a submariner or tender sailor whose family still talks about the Scotland years. The 5-inch size gives the loch scene room to read. A patch for Site One.