An item dated The Hague 9 December reported that the Dutch secretary of state Van Es tried to persuade the evening before the Second Chamber of the parliament to build a nuclear submarine (costs 175.000.000 Dutch guilders) to replace the Karel Doorman which ship has as main task anti-submarine tasks.(1) Van Es said that the NATO asked the Netherlands for such a submarine. The USA wanted first an affirmation of the building before handing over the secret plans. The naval budget was approved although the Communists and the pacifists were against.
Dutch government archives supplies more details about this never realized building and I intend to write a larger note in the near future using these sources. The Netherlands asked the USA and the United Kingdom to cooperate but at the end without success. The Dutch nuclear submarine(s) were to have been an answer to the Soviet threat.
Note
1. The idea was to change the design of two units of the 3-cylinder conventional submarines newly build. The Karel Doorman was an aircraft carrier, the second one with this name and originally the British HMS Venerable (1948) of the Colossus-class.
