Project E

Project E was a joint project between the United States and the United Kingdom during the Cold War. It provided nuclear weapons to the Royal Air Force until sufficient British nuclear weapons became available. A maritime version of Project E known as Project N provided nuclear depth bombs used by the RAF Coastal Command. The last Project E weapons were withdrawn from service in 1992.

About Project E in brief

Project E was a joint project between the United States and the United Kingdom during the Cold War. It provided nuclear weapons to the Royal Air Force until sufficient British nuclear weapons became available. It was subsequently expanded to provide similar arrangements for the British Army of the Rhine. A maritime version of Project E known as Project N provided nuclear depth bombs used by the RAF Coastal Command. Due to operational restrictions imposed by Project E, and the consequential loss of independence of half of the British nuclear deterrent, they were phased out in 1962. The last Project E weapons were withdrawn from service in 1992. During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project codenamed Tube Alloys. The British government considered nuclear technology to be a joint discovery, and trusted that America would continue to share it. In 1949, the Americans offered to make atomic bombs in the US available for Britain to use if the British agreed to curtail their atomic bomb programme. This would have given Britain nuclear weapons much sooner than its own target date of late 1952. The offer was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff on the grounds that it was not compatible with our status as a first class class power. The first atomic bomb was successfully tested in Operation Hurricane; it was detonated on the frigate HMS Plymouth. The proposal resulted in the arrest of British physicist Klaus Fuchs as an atomic spy, resulting in the proposal being dropped in February 1950. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s Lewis Strauss and Arthur Vandenberg, Senators Hickenlooper and Bourke Blooper, opposed the British-offer-of-offer in return for American bombs.

This led to the proposed nuclear weapons programme being limited to a counter-offer limiting the British weapons programme to only those bomb components required by the UK; the rest would be kept in Canada and the rest in the U.A.E. The United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 ended technical cooperation. Fearing a resurgence of American isolationism, and Britain losing its great power status, the UK government restarted its own development effort, now codenaming High Explosive Research. The project was later renamed Project E. It remained in service until 1977 when Honest John was superseded by the Lance missile. The US subsequently offered the Honest John missile as a replacement. Eight-inch and 155 mm nuclear artillery rounds were also acquired under Project E and used under Project Emily from 1959 to 1963. The UK Army acquired Project E warheads for its Corporal missiles in 1958. On 4 July 1945, Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson agreed on Britain’s behalf to the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. On 16 November 1945, President Harry S. Truman and Prime Minister Clement Attlee signed a new agreement that replaced the Quebec Agreement’s requirement for “mutual consent” before using nuclear weapons with one for prior consultation. The Quebec Agreement specified that nuclear weapons would not be used against another country without mutual consent, and there was to be full and effective cooperation in the field of atomic energy.

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