LIFE BENEATH THE WAVES compiled by Roger Fry
Roger Fry recounts the memories of some of the men who served in the Royal Navy’s ‘A’ Class submarines from the 1940s to the 1970s.

“I know of no greater engineering thrill than standing between those Vickers engines on a full power trial, both blowers in and screaming their heads off”. This is the sentiment of a retired of a retired engineer officer who served in ‘A’ Class submarines during the late forties/early fifties and it forms part of many letters received from former submariners in response to my request some years ago for information on the operational life in this class during its long service in the Royal Navy.

Amphion ran her first of class trials off Scotland on VE Day and consequently none of the class reached the Pacific War for which they were designed, although subsequent deployment to the Far East proved that the design was successful. The boat was 281ft 4 ¾ in long, had a 22ft 3in beam and a draught of 17ft. She was equipped with ten torpedo tubes and carried 10 re-loads for the four forward and two aft internal tubes. A 4in QF gun was mounted behind a trainable gun shield forward of the conning tower with a 20mm Oerlikon (twin in some) sited after the ANF radar mast. In addition, there were three bridge fittings for gas-operated Vickers .303 machine guns. Two 8-cylinder Admiralty or Vickers super charged diesel engines developing 4,300bhp drove the boat at 18 ½ knots on the surface and a pair of English Electric motors of 1,250shp could accelerate her to 8 ½ knots submerged. Endurance of 10,500 miles at 11 ½ knots made her ideally suitable for long, Pacific patrols and not only was construction speeded up by new welding techniques but the diving depth of 500 feet was a considerable improvement on anything before her, Considerable thought also went into habitability – all crew quarters were situated forward as far from the engines as possible and each member of the sixty-one crew had a bunk with the captain having his own, albeit minute, cabin above the control room, in the conning tower. Full air conditioning was fitted and even silences for the battery fans.

Of the forty-six vessels planned, twenty-eight were cancelled whilst building, two complete hulls were used for destruction tests or underwater targets, Affray was lost in the Channel, but the remaining fifteen spanned the period 1945 to 1975, taking over the roles of the diminishing ‘T’ Class and supplementing the later ‘Porpoise’ and ‘Oberon’ Classes.

From this point on most of the words are those of my correspondents, to whom I am indebted and I hope that their reminiscences will not only inform the reader but will enable him to experience a little of the life in the ‘A’ boats. I have deliberately not included the already well documented ‘cruises’ of Ambush, Alliance and Andrew, preferring to concentrate on the submariner’s view of this craft.

HMS Amphion – R.W. (Chief Stoker) and R.E. (Leading Radio Mechanic)
“Amphion was first of class and was immediately known as ‘Dewhurst’s Folly’; Diggy Dewhurst was Commander S/M at the time and had to have a metal plate in his skull, having come a purler off the bridge. She later became dubbed ‘Damnfione’ as originally she did not have the distinctive bow – this buoyancy tank was fitted after sea trials, with further modification to other tanks, after a passage from Rothesay to ’Derry when the port lookout’s left elbow was almost continually in the water. She was an unhandy boat, slow to dive and would roll on a wet dishcloth, but one big attraction was that in place of air-aided heads, there was a slop drain tank which meant that you could not ‘get your own back’. Unfortunately, the tank vented inboard, close to the boat’s ventilation intake and was always blown just before the evening meal so everyone got their share throughout the boat, although it could be useful for ridding the vessel of unwelcome guests! Amphion, Astute, Auriga, Affray and Aeneas went to Hong Kong and formed the 1st Submarine Squadron with HMS Adamant from August 1946 to March 1948 and whilst refitting in Honkers dockyard Auriga’s snort mast was fitted.”

HMS Alliance – W.H. (EngineerOofficer)
“After a courtesy visit to Denmark in 1948 with Ambush and Aurochs, Alliance was detailed as ‘eyes’ of the defending Blue Fleet in FOSM’s Summer War. Red Fleet, including a ’carrier, was to approach the Channel from way out in the Atlantic and we were supposed to sight, track from astern and send regular course/speed reports. Mother Nature, ably assisted by Father Neptune, had a different idea. A gale blew up on the second day out and as any ‘A’ boat man will know, we rolled our guts out. We remained on the surface, partly on the remote chance of a sighting but mainly because of the hazards of resurfacing in the very large waves when stability is at a minimum. The oggin came down the tower with monotonous regularity and the control room and wardroom decks were awash in six inches of dirty water – it was amazing what came out from under the bunks. After three days of purgatory, we had a dozen heavy weather causalities caused by falls against machinery or sharp objects with radar operator, who suffered from sea-sickness at the best of times, absolutely prostrate in his bunk. The young sub on watch on the bridge was forced aft by a larger than usual wave and his fore finger became jammed in the wind deflector bracket and when we finally got him clear his finger was crushed to the bone with the tendons hanging. That decided things and we broke radio silence to request, and were granted, permission to put into the Azores for medical help.

On our way back up the Channel, on a fine, peaceful night, chugging along on one engine with a standing charge on the other side, I was on the bridge chatting with the officer of the watch, everyone else below. We spotted a ship’s lights on the starboard quarter, a big ship, coming up fast and apparently heading straight for us. “Chief, get out the Aldis and shine it on the periscope standards, not in his eyes. Maybe he hasn’t seen us yet”. This I did but the ship held on and it was clear that if we didn’t do something pretty quick, she would run us down. “Telegraphs, Chief: Full Speed Ahead!” and after a momentary pause, the running engine surged ahead, the charge broken on the other side and in seconds both engines were working up to full power. The boat leaped ahead and the approaching ship crossed our track only half a cable astern – a very near miss. Fortunately the CERA was in the engine room doing his night rounds when the telegraphs rang and he took the instant action necessary. When we got back, the incident was reported to the Admiralty and we later learned that it was an Italian cruise liner which had just altered course towards Southampton – obviously her lookouts were not doing their duty and her employers got a sharp rocket.”

HMS Aurochs – R.E. (Leading Radio Mechanic)
“Aurochs, named after an extinct European bison, was known as the ‘Woolley Bull’. Her crest was naturally the head of this animal and the Latin motto was ‘Taurus Excreta Sapientum Fulcreat’ (the dung of the bull causes wisdom to flee), translated by the crew as ‘bullshit baffles brains’ – someone in the Admiralty had a puckish sense of humour! Like many boats, she had her own song and many publicans throughout the world have been rather boozily serenaded with ‘I’ll join the Legion, that’s what I’ll do’. She was fitted with a snort and in choppy weather, bad trim or poor afterplanesman the ball float valve at the top of the mast would dip below the water’s surface and constantly open and shut, causing the partial vacuum, always present when snorting, to increase/ decrease with everyone’s eardrums going in and out like chapel hut pegs – you got kicked to death by your mess mates when you came off watch. The chef had a hard time too; knocking up dough in a large wooden trough for fresh baked bread rolls, all rising well under the increased pressure when captain orders ‘Stop snorting’; the engines stop and the boat’s pressure immediately returns ambient – blue air in the galley and rock cakes, again, for breakfast! The wardroom steward was notorious; having left his previous boat under a bit of a cloud and before departing had nailed a ‘Spithead Pheasant’ (kipper) under the wardroom table. He received a telegram reading. ‘We know what it is, but where did you put it?’ Whilst going ashore one day, he was cobbered by the cox’n. ‘What’s in the bottle, steward?’ ‘Cough mixture, swain, like it says on the label’. Needless to say, despite the label, it was rum – everyone in boats got neaters. ‘You can’t always believe a label, steward – I’ll take it and think yourself lucky you have not got a fifty pound blow under your bonnet’.
A few weeks later, at sea and serving afters, our mess man opened a tin of peaches and proceeded to dish out tomatoes, into the custard! The steward’s face appeared round the curtain, grinning from ear to ear …. ‘You can’t always believe a label, ‘swain!’ He had methodically steamed off, swapped and reglued the labels down in the store”.

HMS Anchorite – R.W. (Chief Stoker)
“The snort mast in Anchorite lay horizontally on the port side and was always full of sea water when dived and not in use – if it was empty it would have collapsed under pressure. The mast was raised by rams operated in the control room and there were drains fitted so that sea water could be drained from the induction tube into the control room tank. The exhaust line ran from the engine room, under the casing to the snort mast in earlier versions but this was found to cause an exhaust trail which could be easily spotted, especially from the air. Modifications were made to attach the exhaust pipe to the ANF radar mast standard which discharged a few feet under water, thereby eliminating the trail. The snort exhaust valve could not be opened until the ERA on watch had admitted high pressure air to the line, forcing out the sea water and keeping the line clear until the donks started when the exhaust pressure in the pipe would keep the water out. When snorting, the exhaust valve required grinding every two minutes to prevent carbon forming around the valve. This tedious task fell to a junior stoker, closing the valve to two turns from shut as shown on the indicator and then turning the grinding wheel handle fitted within the valve handle wheel to rotate the valve in the seating. When ordered ‘Stop snorting’ was given, the stoker shut the valve to two turns open, high pressure air was again admitted to keep the water back, the donks stopped and the induction valve was shut – only then could the exhaust valve be shut and the mast lowered.

HMAS Alliance – W.H. (Engineer Officer)
“Time passed and Alliance found herself at Londonderry where we spent most of our time ‘Clockwork-mousing’ for the anti-submarine frigates there. A deadly dull performance usually, but not this time. Tooling along at slow speed, group down, at about 90 feet, all was quiet, all was still, with a Group Captain RAF who had come out for the day trip sleeping off his lunch time pink gins, feet forward, head aft on one of the wardroom bunks. Only the diving watch was awake and then it happened…. We shot to the surface like a whale coming up from a 900 feet sound. A Shackleton flying overhead later told us that our hull came out as far as the bridge before we flopped back onto the surface. They were so concerned that they started mustering all their Mae Wests thinking we should need them. The most concerned of all however was the Group Captain. Rudely awakened from his slumber, he found his feet way above his head, covered from head to foot in ink and paper, with a large dish of eggs balanced precariously on the edge of the cupboard above him. On investigation, it was found that the after plane operator just taking over the watch had slipped whilst getting into his chair forcing the operating lever to ‘hard arise’ and the ram aft had gone its full travel and jammed. Still, it was all sorted out and we later had a good laugh over it – if it had been ‘hard adive’, though….”

HMS Acheron - R.W. (Chief Stoker)
“The commanding officer of Acheron ordered the officer of the watch to clear the bridge and dive the boat. Obeying the command, the bridge was cleared, Klaxon pressed and the officer jumped down into the conning tower only to find that the upper hatch was still pinned back by the securing clips. The captain seeing this from the control room and with the boat diving, had no alternative but order the lower hatch shut, leaving the man in the tower. As soon as practical, the captain ordered ‘Surface’, tower was drained, hatch opened and out fell a half-drowned, bedraggled officer of the watch. The wrath of the captain lasted that whole patrol, not only because of the near catastrophe but as his cabin was within the tower, he lost all his personal possessions. Needless to say the culprit lost his bunk in the wardroom to the captain until the cabin had dried out.

It was difficult to keep clean in a submarine and alongside one day, the captain’s wife, entering the boat through the forward torpedo hatch, was suddenly anxious to climb back up, her husband resisted her effort from behind with his hands on her shoulders saying ‘It’s all right dear keep going’, not knowing that she had confronted a naked submariner taking a shower – each foot in a bucket of warm water, pouring a third over himself. Red faces all round!”

HMS Alaric – K.S. (Signalman)
“One submarine crew enquired of a daily paper how many pigs they would keep in an area equivalent of the froward sailor’s mess and the paper replied – four. There were, of course, twelve seamen actually sleeping in it, probably nearer twenty actually living in it. One advantage of the ‘A’s over the more modern boats was that in the evenings movies could be shown in the tube space leaving the mess decks clear for other activities: cards, talk, board games letter writing etc. The ‘P’ and ‘O’ tube space was just that, no room for anything but ‘fish’ and the sophisticated loading equipment”.

HMS Astute – F.M. (Petty Officer TGM)
“Reloading the tubes was always done in still water beneath the surface. The torpedo stowage bulkhead door was shut and just four or five men would set about their business. The tackle needed to haul the ‘fish’ into the tubes was stowed in the centre of the deck and the water in the tubes could be drained into a special tank once the outer doors were shut, allowing the internal doors to be opened and reloading commenced. The torpedo tubes were ‘dry fit’ i.e. they were only fractionally larger in the circumference than the 21in torpedo allowing the outer doors to be opened once the torpedoes were loaded and the internal doors shut with little or no ingress of water into the tube and therefore weight. There was always relief when the job had been completed, not only because of the possible hazards but because there was now more space. In fact, the sick bay could only come into operation once the lower starboard aft ‘fish’ had been loaded as only then was the folding bunk revealed.

HMS Affray – F.A. (rank unknown)
“On the 17th April 1951, Affray was lost with all hands in the English Channel and was eventually traced in Hurd Deep with a snapped-off snort. I was in Ambush at the time and all ‘A’ boats were ‘grounded’ until escape alterations were made, principally to the gun tower hatch. This and the difficulty to accepting that a break in the snort above the induction valve could account form the loss, leads me to believe that someone knew far more about the incident than has been told. The fore-planes were seen to be in the ‘hard-arise’ position which indicates attempts to surface and no external damage was noted. Both Alliance and Auriga have since suffered battery explosions and a similar incident in Affray could have ruptured the pressure hull – even a small rupture could account for sudden loss of the depth control and even if the tide of water was stemmed, the danger of chlorine poisoning would be almost impossible to eliminate.

HMS Artemis – (Author)
Artemis, on loan to the Canadian Government, was the cause of a ‘Subsmash’ alarm in 1963, after failing to respond to signals ordering her to surface. Canadian ships and aircraft began a huge search operation 700 miles east of New York but fortunately she surfaced safely 1 ½ hours later.

HMS Artful – (Author)
In 1955, the first ‘A’ Class was taken in hand for conversion and streamlining on the American Guppy Pattern. Artful appeared with the deletion of all four external tubes, a lowered and finer bow, wider but lighter aluminium casing and a 26 ½ feet high fin enclosing conning tower and periscope/radar masts, the boat being conned on the surface from atop. The gun hatch remained in all boats and for short periods, but only in a few boats, the 4in gun was refitted at deck level, usually for Far East deployments. Internal modifications were relatively minor as there was no increase in battery space nor underwater power as there had been in the earlier, lengthened ‘T’s. Improvements to habitability, the fitting of an automatic depth controller, refined sonar and torpedo firing arrangements were some of the modifications made. However, streamlining improved speed by one or two knots and, importantly, reduced underwater noise. The snort induction was still housed on the port side as it was not until after refits that some of the boats had their fins extended to include a central, telescopic snort mast. The only boat not modernised was Aurochs – she was found at survey to be in too poor a condition and had the distinction of being the last British wartime-designed submarine to remain in service more or less in her original guise, going to the breakers in 1967.

HMS Auriga – K. S. (Signalman)
“I served in three of the class during the middle ’sixties to ’seventies Ambush, Auriga and Alaric, as a signalman. We thought they were magic boats; speedy, roomy and fun to be on. They could knock along at a surface speed, in most cases, around 20 knots and the modern boats could not match on a fast run home, being overtaken and us taking the best berths. Top whack in Rorqual was only 13/14 knots. Another advantage was the control room layout for the helmsman – in ‘P’ and ‘O’s the tower hatch was in the forward part and in inclement weather he froze to death from the rush of air created by the engines and in rough weather, a good soaking. The ‘A’s had the tower hatch in the middle and when dived and the captain not using his cabin, the ladder was removed and when surfaced it was not in anyone’s way as you could pass the other side without a problem. We were intensely proud of our ‘A’s – serving in them, with our big 4in gun, gave us something over the modern boats despite their superior dived knots. At full speed, with both blowers in, the noise was intolerable and all orders had to be conveyed by gesture. In 1968 on Auriga, we sailed to come home from the Far East going west about via the Pacific - Acheron sailed to come East about via the Cape. On leaving Bermuda after a two week self maintenance period we were all a little concerned as she was badly in need of a refit and leaked a little. The captain then announced that the ‘safe to dive’ date had expired – there were some not so quiet cheers from the mess decks and we ended up having to shore down the heads of the diesels with four by fours against the pressure hull to get us home, as they were in such a bad way. At the time of a major refit, everything would be removed from the boat – battery cells, furniture etc and the diesels would be stripped and taken up piece by piece through the engine room hatch, the largest in the boat. Only the main motors would remain as these would be replaced perhaps only once or twice in the boat’s life and to be brought up through a hole cur into the top of the hull, re-welded shut after replacement.

HMS Ambush – R. S. (Signalman)
“On Ambush, stationed at Singapore, the 4in gun was used by us mainly as something to hang the screen for the evening film shows alongside! We did practice gun actions although on our boat, Auriga and Aeneas if not others, there were no proper gunners, the gun’s crew comprising torpedo men, sonar operators and, as usual, the officers steward whose action station was the wardroom beneath the gun tower hatch and the boat, with a good pressure inside to assist the first member our of the hatch, would be held down by the fore and aft planes at the dive position whilst blowing the tanks. Quickly the planes were reversed, ‘taking the brakes off’, allowing the boat to burst to the surface with the gun hatch open as early as possible, often when not quite out of the water and out went the crew. Ammunition came from the magazine below the wardroom and I think there was a ready used locker just out side”. (Pre-conversion, there were two ready used sealed cells by the upper gun hatch, holding one round each – these were removed on modernisation – Author) “No protection from the elements on top and no shield to give even token shelter from weather or splinters. The initial firing was set up from periscope depth then control handed over to the bridge. We also had two mountings atop the fin for Vickers machine guns and always had one rigged during ‘hands to bathe’ in case of shark attack – although what shark would want to eat diesel-tasting submariner, I don’t know”.

HMS Aeneas - E.F. (civilian correspondent)
“In 1972, Aeneas was taken in hand by Vickers Shipbuilding, Barrow to be fitted with SLAM – Submarine Launched Air Missile and successfully carried tests on the system based on the Army’s Blowpipe anti-aircraft missile. This was fitted on a telescopic pole which retracted into the now bulbous foretop of the fin and in fact she was re-numbered SSG72. The trails were not completed as it was belatedly remembered that a submarine’s best defence was to dive and evade rather than risk a standing fight and a punctured pressure hull.”
HMS Andrew - Author
Andrew had the distinction, in December 1974, of being the last British submarine to fire a 4in gun and signalled to FOSM “The reek of cordite has passed from the Royal Navy’s submarine service. Last gun action at 03 1330 Zulu. Time to first round – 36 seconds. May the art of submarine gunnery rest in peace but never forgotten”.

HMS Anchorite – S.T. (Navigation Officer)
“The streamlined ‘A’s had lovely splayed bows which pushed the water outwards but in really rough weather they were miserable. In Anchorite we used to snort on the surface by raising the mast as high as possible, shut the conning tower hatches leaving the officer of the watch and lookouts on top of the fin. These would change by using the conning tower as an airlock, shutting the upper hatch and draining the tower before opening up the lower one. The captain’s cabin was not used during these periods and he moved to the wardroom. However, they were first class sea boats and we did not often have to resort to this. At no time during my service in the ‘A’s was there any need for hammocks or camp beds – when we had guests we hot-bunked”.

HMS Artemis – E.F. (civilian correspondent)
“Twenty years after the Affray loss, the only other ‘A’ class to involuntarily sink was Artemis when on the 1st July 1971she sank between the jetty and Ocelot at HMS Dolphin, Gosport. The accident happened whilst the captain was off the boat, during ‘first filling’ of her diesel fuel tanks with salt water prior to refuelling. ‘A’ boats had tanks which allowed sea water to replace fuel consumed and thereby compensate for weight loss and neither the skeleton crew nor the Trot sentry noticed her slowly sinking by the stern until the aft casing was awash. Warnings were given below and twelve men scrambled to safety but the engine room hatch could not be shut due to heavy power cables rigged from the shore passing through the hatchway and the boat sank with three men trapped forward. Strenuous and successful efforts were made to rescue them that night and Artemis was later raised by salvage vessels. At the inquiry, the cause was attributed to the neglect of basic ship stability principles and she was sold to breakers in 1972 after lying in Fareham Creek”.

HMS Ambush – K.S. (Signalman)
“As we were the only class of submarine left with a gun hatch, landing parties of SBS and/or SAS were often carried, sometimes with their canoes stowed in the tube space and we used the same system as in wartime - canoes brought up through the forward torpedo hatch, rigged on the casing and we then dived and left them to get on with their naughty business. We sometimes placed a Marine Commando swimmer in the gun hatch, flooded it and when the pressure equalised, he opened the upper hatch and swam out. Once he had left, the upper hatch could be shut from the wardroom the water drained down into internal tanks and another swimmer entered the now empty tower through the lower hatch. This could be repeated as often as necessary. On one occasion, a swimmer got his finger in the way of the upper hatch as it was flung back and it was immediately separated from his hand. The Marine Sergeant’s comment on observing the wound on re-entry was only “No problem – it’s not his trigger finger!”

One crazy method of recovery, we thought, was also exercised. SBS/SAS would do an attack, either from the submarine landing in canoes or by parachute, then swim/paddle out to sea for the rendezvous, with the boat. Once in the rendezvous vicinity, they would stretch a line across the water with the group equally divided out each end and waited. The submarine would spot the two groups, raise the attack periscope and snag the line between them whilst still at periscope depth to tow them out to sea to a safe area when the submarine would surface and the canoes and swimmers be recovered in the usual way”. (I have seen Walrus leaving Portland with SAS embarked and rope lines rigged fore and aft to the fin top to practise this exercise and also Olympus fitted with a special internal chamber secured to her escape hatch to launch SBS swimmers. Other ‘O’s have been seen to launch swimmers from the conning tower whilst submerged in Portland Harbour -Author).

HMS Alcide – M.D. (civilian photographer)
“Albert Draper & Son Ltd, shipbreakers of Hull, will not forget Alcide in a hurry. The company rather had their fingers burned when they acquired her in 1974 for scrap from the Royal Navy. They assumed, not unnaturally, that they were buying a relatively complete vessel, minus one or two bits of secret or vital equipment and they were expecting a handsome return on their investment, this being their first warship. The size of the boat dictated that the initial stages of the demolition were carried out afloat in Albert Dock until she was sufficiently light to be towed to Victoria Dock, to be hauled out of the water up the slips. It was only then that her secret was revealed – no propellers! These two high valued manganese propellers were to have been the star attraction to Drapers and clearly had been removed by the Navy for use as spares for her sisters or indeed for scrap value. Needless to say, Drapers never had another warship to break

HMS Andrew – Author
Andrew was the last ‘A’ boat in Royal Navy service, decommissioning in December 1947. She lay at Devonport until 1977 whilst strenuous, though unsuccessful, efforts were made to purchase her for preservation. Fortunately, Alliance decommissioned and replacing Tabard as static display at HMS Dolphin in 1973, was towed to Vospers at Southampton in 1979 to have her keel strengthened and since 1981 has been displayed on a concrete cradle at HMS Dolphin as part of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum and in memory of those submariners who lost their lives in submarines.

“First the Nab, then the Warmer,
Haslar Creek ’round Blockhouse Corner”.
From ‘Ships Monthly’ March 1989 Volume 24 Number 3

The Life Of An OD by POM Greenie (VM) On Trump
When browsing the Australian Submarine Association Site I was surprised to see in the History link a picture of the Trump leaving Sydney Harbour for the last time in 1969 with our usual companion the Oxley in the distance. I was a member of the casing party that day and remember the bit of fun we had with the other boat throwing potatoes at one another once we were outside the Heads. Most of us were sad to leave the old place where we had been made to feel so at home. Ashore we were always made welcome at places like the Manly RSL and the North Sydney Anzac club. The Mosman RSL club was our laundry run where we often had lunch and a dinner time drink, while the lady in the laundrette next door took charge of the dhobeying. In Platypus the VMs of the Pommy boats had the particular advantage of the Tot at 1130hrs down the boat, and the lunch time swill in the Aussies’ bar at 1230 - 1300hrs, where the beer was sometimes bought by the rum fanny full, to save the bother of middies and schooners etc.

Conditions on board Trump were a bit basic, the open plan heads in the stoker’s mess behind the emergency after planes handle was a typical example. In an after planes emergency you sat on the heads and wound like fury, in an attempt to follow Evershed. One time in Eden I bought a guest down the boat to the after ends to find a fellow member asleep on the pan for all to see, I'm sure she'll always remember the vision, it didn't advance my cause either. It was probably the last boat with heads that blew straight to sea, and I, as many before me, experienced the horror of blowing the heads with the valve combination wrong, but learning from the mistake.

The diesels, 6 cylinder Vickers were quite resilient. On one snort transit from NZ to Sydney the tiffies ran the port donk with a slung piston. The whole boat whipped about, in the engine room you couldn't keep a book steady enough to read the same anywhere from the fore ends to the after ends. In the days before leaving to come home to UK, persons unknown tried to sabotage the engines by putting nuts through the injector holes. Fortunately the bump clearance was such that no sustainable damage was caused, though it meant a lot of extra work for the donk shop staff in removing the foreign objects and testing the engines.

Our electrical department had a hectic time doing equalisers, torqueing, topping up, taking all-round readings, replacing sick cells; the electrical machinery was generally in good condition. Access to the batteries was poor, three and four batteries being under the deck plates of the Wardroom and Tiffies Mess and one and two batteries having their own compartments under the seaman’s and senior rates messes. In these compartments you were provided with boards to lie on for tending the battery, giving you about 2 feet head room and no chance if there was an explosion.

Even in these early days of the existence of Platypus the local residents of Neutral Bay had a problem with the noise of submarine engines, so the modern shore charging facilities were well used. The operation of these was ahead of their time in the implementation of a safety permit system which was mutually signed before switching on. My own mishap occurred before we even got to this stage when our blokes were hauling the cables on board and I was trying to restrain the jetty cable drum. The obvious happened and when I came too in the water my first thoughts were to grab my hat, a rare and shared item of kit, and worry about the permit.

Life ashore sometimes had its down times - climbing down the fire escape ropes from Penguin accommodation block well pissed, assembling on the lawn in the middle of the night when some citizen had set off the fire alarm, saying the wrong thing to karate expert Lionel of the Mossman plonk shop and getting ejected, occasionally annoying my colleagues resulting in a sore face.

Now I'm in booze control mode imposed by a Dumbarton Deb, had a family who’ve flit the nest (not one to the Navy). I spend a little time on the net and have enjoyed your site.

POLARIS AND THE SUBMARINE by LCDR A.R.C. ROWE, DSC RN
It is easier perhaps to begin by stating some of things that Polaris is and is not.

Polaris is a weapon, or more accurately, a weapon system; it can be fired from land or sea and it may become part of a deterrent effort for land forces in Europe. Polaris is capable of being fired from on the sea and has been fired from under the sea. Polaris is not a submarine: the submarine in this article refers to the under-water ship propelled by nuclear power.

The importance of the Polaris submarine is gradually making its full impact on the people of Great Britain, but its importance in naval strategy has not been fully realized outside defence circles.

Each Polaris submarine is designed to carry 16 missiles, with a range now of 1,200 miles and a predicted range of 2,500 miles. With the latter range Polaris will cover the globe. To carry this armament, the US Navy envisages three classes of submarines;

Type of Submarine & Tonnage
George Washington - 5,900
Ethan Allen - 6,900
Lafayette - 7,000

George Washington is now on patrol below the surface of the Atlantic. Patrick Henry and Robert E. Lee are commissioned, and with the building time cut to two years, they will soon follow their sister boats to sea.

Towards the end of the 1939-45 war over 50 per cent of the conventional enemy submarines were sunk by aircraft; the majority by Costal Command and the remainder of that percentage by the Fleet Air Arm. The aircrews were able to attack because they had established contact by radar or sighting or both whilst the submarine was recharging batteries on the surface or by using a snorkel device. The aircraft nearly always patrolled “probability” areas. The remainder of sinkings were achieved by close escort ships or hunter-killer groups, the latter again patrolling “probability” areas. No enemy submarine could achieve success until it operated in a defended sea area, and the probable routes to such areas were self evident. But it is not the intention that the Polaris submarine should go anywhere near any warship or other defended area and, as it will not surface for weeks, or even months, it is nearly immune from air attack unless there is a breakthrough towards solving the air/under surface detection problem.

Anti-submarine measures have improved greatly since the last war. Asdic ranges have increased and fast anti-submarine ships have helped to redress the balance, whilst nuclear depth charges have a lethal range of 2,000 feet as opposed to 35 feet of the conventional weapons. But, Polaris submarines are reputed to have a speed in excess of 20-25 knots, which makes the task of the A/S surface forces very difficult even in the calmest of seas.

Using the varying density layers of the ocean and their own high speed, they will prove hard to kill by conventional hunter-killer submarines with homing torpedoes themselves not having a great margin of speed over their prey. Helicopters with dunking sonar, in combination with hunter-killer nuclear submarines and surface A/S forces, provide the most likely solution – provided you know where to begin to look.

An interesting problem arises if a hunter-killer submarine finds and tracks a Polaris submarine at a period of mounting international tension. When shall she destroy the enemy? Before the enemy fires her weapons? This may be the spark needed to set off the conflagration. Even though it was an underwater spark – water won’t put this one out. After the Polaris is fired? It is then too late. It might be possible to shadow all known rocket-firing submarines, but again the same dilemma is apparent.

The navigational aids in nuclear propelled submarines are probably the most exact and also the most complicated at sea. From leaving harbour, dead reckoning is used but little. The Ships Inertial Navigation System – SINS for short – is used for the rest of the voyage. Very simply SINS is a system of three gyros in three planes at right angles to each other which is connected to accelerometers, in turn feeding a computer. After various corrections allowing for ship movement, the movement of the earth in its orbit and so on, the answer is given as a position in space. This is then related to the position on the earth’s surface. In addition, a periscope is used for conventional astronavigation; a radiometric sextant measures radio waves emitted by the sun and Decca, Loran and all other conventional navigation aids are used when possible. As one can imagine, this navigation must be, and is, very accurate.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the Polaris submarine is the human one. The Commanding Officer and other officers do up to two years’ special study – before they join their ship. Similarly, the ratings also undergo intensive specialized training. In spite of the long periods at sea, nearly all of it submerged, no psychological training is required. This is not surprising as it seems, as it is only since the advent of coal burning ships that seafarers have come to expect frequent shore leave. Naturally, and quite rightly, everything possible is done to relieve the inevitable monotony and boredom of long patrols, by excellent living conditions, cinemas, libraries and hobbies of all kinds. In addition, two crews, Blue and Gold, man the submarine alternately, thus getting as long a spell ashore as they do at sea.

The Polaris submarine now presents the most devastating weapons system yet devised by man. The armament of such ship constitutes a greater explosive force than all the bombs dropped by all nations of both sides fighting between 1939 and 1945, including the two atomic bombs on Japan.

It is argued that the cost of these vessels is prohibitive insofar as the Royal Navy is concerned. If the cost of the Polaris submarine and its missiles has to come from the existing Naval Vote, then it is prohibitive. But surely the present defence vote is in four parts. These votes are Navy, Arm. Air Force and the Deterrent, and it is the Deterrent vote which is affected, and not the other three

The cost of USS George Washington is said to be $US100 million and that of a single missile $US 1.3 million, but British charges may well be below this figure. Remembering the maintenance costs of aircraft, airfields and fixed rocket bases, it may well be cheaper to invest in Missile submarines as our contribution to the deterrent.
From the British magazine “The Navy” published in December 1960.

BOOKS
Napoleons Book shop have new books on submarines, the first is “Gallipoli attack from the Sea” by Victor Rudenno ISBN 9781921410598. The blurb states: The Gallipoli Campaign 1914-15 is one of the events of the first World War that continues to seize imaginations today, they being the naval dimensions of the campaign. The book provides the only account of the complete allied submarine and related German U-Boat activity. The other is the “The Collins Submarine Story –Steel, Spies and Spin” by Peter Yule and Derek Woolner. ISBN 139870521869845.

Napoleons are located at 139 York Street behind the QVB, Sydney, Please mention you saw this item in “In Depth” for a discount. Contact sales@napoleonsbookshop.com or phone 02 92647560

NEW MEMBERS - WELCOME ONBOARD

APPLEBY, I (Apples) Cherrybrook NSW 2126
CPOETSSM HMAS Onslow thrice, Oxley, Otway, Otama and Orion 1981-1992

VAN BERK, W.R.A. (Seaweed) Zillmere QLD 4034
ABSTDSM HMAS Oxley 1969 - 1972

WELLS, P.B. (Pete) Yandina Creek QLD 4561
LSMTP3SM HMAS Otama, Otway and Onslow 1986 - 1994

Editorial

In a recent issues of “In Depth” see especially Volume 28 #1 January 2008, I have been trying to stress how important it is for we men to have their prostates checked for cancer, all men over the age of 45 are at risk and once the “glove” digit test is done the rest of the tests (PSA) are done from your blood at least once every year. My conversations with members and friends all stress that the treatment of this cancer can be very stressful, painful and tiring on the body and they are the lucky ones who have managed to get it in remission.

If it is good enough for our women folk to regularly have their breasts manhandled for a mammogram to detect breast cancer and the very uncomfortable pap smear to detect cervical cancer every three or four years, then there is no shame to have one small test and a regular blood PSA test. So gentlemen don’t be one of the 18,000 plus Australian men to be diagnosed with this cancer this year, or in future years. On that note, I will stand down and pack my soapbox away; however, I will still accept correspondence from you on this subject.

On a separate issue and it happens every ANZAC Day I hear many waries of do and daring, all great stories, however at the end of the day I am in my cups and cannot remember them and I stress that they should be put down on paper. It is one thing for me to print stories of the ‘A’ and other boats as I know that our members served in them and probably brought back some good memories prior to their time in Oberons. But guys, what about our own yarns about our own boats and crewmembers! There have been a few members over the years who have been supportive and have sent me stories, now I would like the ones you were telling at your reunions. You don’t have to be Shakespeare when writing them down we will get the gist and the chuckle you desire.

This is called oral history, and it is not being recorded and it could be lost to our future submariners, your reminisces can be sent to me by any of the addresses in the Masthead of this newsletter

To all readers of “In Depth” all the very best to you and yours.

Yours sincerely,
Peter R Smith
Peter Smith,
Hon Nat Secretary
29 April 2008
 

SAA Welfare Foundation
Statement of Income & Expenditure for the year ended 31st. March 2008

INCOME                                                            EXPENDITURE

Donations Received                                              FID/GDT Charges         Nil

- Peter Smith                 $ 30.00

- CL & L Lewis           $100.00

- UK SM Coxn’s Ass   $  61.19

- Peter Smith                 $  10.00

- SAA WA                   $ 107.00

- SAA SA                     $ 500.00

- Peter Smith                 $155.00

Interest

- Cheque A/C              $   22.16                         Excess of Income over

- Term Deposit           $2262.63                         Expenditure                                 

Total                           $3247.68                        Total                   $3247.68

LIABILITIES                                                                ASSETS

Credit Bal. B/F from                                  Term Deposit 3974         $42572.63

31st March 2007         $45261.86            CBA Cheque A/C          $  5936.91

Plus Excess of

Income/Expenditure    $  3247.68

       Total                     $48509.54                Total                        $48509.54

Audited & Certified Correct

Auditor  HG Gethin-Jones                                         Trustee        T. Everard

Lieutenant Commander RN(Rtd)