The anguished birth of Britain’s strategic nuclear deterrent, studded with philosophical debate, moralistic scruples, political antipathy, inter-Service rivalry, American support that waxed and waned, budget allocation arguments and competition from a variety of land-based and air-launched missile systems, finally came to a successful conclusion off Cape Canaveral at 11.15 Eastern Standard Time on February 15, 1968, when the Royal Navy’s first ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Resolution, completed a faultless firing of her first Polaris missile, telemetered and with a dummy warhead, to its target 1,000 miles down range.

This date, time and place had been fixed five years earlier when the British Cabinet endorsed the Nassau agreement between President John F. Kennedy and the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in January 1963, a triumphant achievement of planning and execution.

As captain of the Resolution at the time, Michael Henry played a significant part in reaching this milestone by overcoming delays and earned the praise of the shipbuilder Vickers’ chief executive. The drive and efficiency for which he was widely noted mastered the host of irritating distractions that cause new-build ships to adhere to the dockyard wall and thus contributed to the timely completion of contractor’s sea trials and his crew’s work-up.

Typical of these teething troubles was the trim calculation by Lieutenant-Commander Dick Husk, the second-in-command, that rather fortunately removed 90 tonnes of excess ballast against the naval constructor’s wishes, as well as generator failures that aborted the first transatlantic crossing.

At Canaveral the US Navy’s embarked personnel were impressed with the professionalism of Henry’s people during the month-long process of “demonstrating and shaking down” the missile system, the “DASO” that is undergone by all the USN’s ballistic missile submarines.

By June 1968 Resolution was on her first deterrent patrol, Henry commanding her “port watch” crew under the port-and-starboard double manning system used in Polaris submarines that allows the maximum operational usage of the boat itself. In this connection a sour note, born of Henry’s competitive nature and that the “port” crew garnered most of the “firsts”, was manifested as a disharmony between the two crews about which Henry wrote: “I am ashamed to say that we, the captains, were not innocent of this discord.”

As Resolution dived for the first patrol, Henry is recorded as saying: “This is a funny way to earn a living,” a sentiment echoed by many “deterrent” sailors since. Well illustrating his Christian faith is his Prayer for Polaris which can now been seen on the wall of St John’s Chapel in Faslane, the final passage being, “Give us the will, but never the wish, to obey the order to fire. But O Lord, if it be thy will, grant that that order may never need to be given.”

For 40 years these patrols have continued without a single break. Despite huge advances in anti-submarine search techniques, the nature of the ocean water mass continues to assure their invulnerability.

Michael Charles Henry joined Dartmouth naval college as a cadet aged 13 in 1942. His early sea service was as a midshipman on the West Indies station in the cruiser Kenya in 1946, followed by the cruiser Birmingham. He qualified as a submariner in May 1949, joining the submarines Alcide and Sea Scout and rising to second-in-command of the Talent and Trenchant on the Home and Mediterranean stations.

He passed the CO’s qualifying course in the autumn of 1955, then commanded the Seraph, famous for several wartime clandestine operations. Her conning tower now graces the parade ground in Charleston, South Carolina, of the Reserve Officers’ Training School in memory of the American General Mark Clark who was in 1942 secretly landed in North Africa to treat with the Vichy French.

Henry later commanded the Trump, attended staff courses and was promoted to commander in December 1961. Posted to Washington as the Staff Officer Submarines on the British Navy Staff, he was also appointed to a formal position in the highly structured US-UK Polaris programme. He made many friends and went often to sea in American nuclear submarines as well as becoming an expert in the DASO requirements, known as he was to be trustworthy with US nuclear secrets.

In late 1964 he was told by the Flag Officer Submarines, Admiral Sir Horace Law, that he would be the first captain of a British Polaris submarine. In the interim he was appointed for nine months to the large guided missile destroyer London as second-in-command after his predecessor had suffered a breakdown in relationships with the notorious Polish Captain (later Rear-Admiral) Jozef Bartosik (obituary January 22, 2008) whose oppressive style of leadership often made his officers’ lives a misery. Henry had the character to stand up to Bartosik’s bullying despite having his leave stopped on one occasion — it is unheard of in the Navy to stop the leave of the second-in-command — for some trivial matter. An adverse fitness report from Bartosik did not affect his next appointment.

After two patrols in Resolution, one of which coincided with the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Henry was selected for promotion to captain in late 1969, somewhat of a relief as he was within six months of being “over-zone”.

His tours as a captain included an Admiralty position as the director of naval operations and trade, two years in command of the four-boat Polaris force as its captain (SM) and a particularly happy tour in command of the guided-missile destroyer Hampshire that included a South America flag-showing voyage in company with the carrier Ark Royal.

He retired in 1978 to become the marine director of the British National Oil Corporation. Later, from 1980 to 1990, he was the naval regional officer for Scotland and Northern Ireland, making arrangements for visiting Royal Navy warships and those of other nations, tall ships and naval affairs generally over a huge parish with an office in Glasgow and a staff of two. He was for some years the vice-president of the Submariners’ Association and president of the local Sea Cadets. Always a keen yachtsman, he was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, a member of the Royal Northern Yacht Club for 34 years and secretary of the exclusive Mudhook Yacht Club. In 1982 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for Dumbartonshire. He had been a case worker for the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA) since 1991.

He is survived by his wife, Elma, whom he married in 1950, and their two sons and three daughters.

Captain Michael Henry, submariner, was born on April 4, 1928. He died on November 6, 2008, aged 80