Tubby Linton's Log

HMS Olympus found

2012-01-11T17:11:00.001Z

January 9, 2012, Malta - A marine archeology survey team from the AURORA Trust Foundation, working in cooperation with Malta’s Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, has discovered the sunken British submarine HMS Olympus (N35) off the coast of Malta. AURORA’s Director of Marine Archeology, Dr. Timmy Gambin led the survey team in this spectacular discovery.
The Olympus struck a mine on May 8, 1942 while leaving the British naval base in the Grand Harbor of Malta, and its location has remained a mystery for almost 70 years until its discovery by AURORA.
In addition to its normal crew of 55, the Olympus was carrying 43 crewmen from two other British submarines that had been sunk during air raids by Italian and German forces. Leaving the Grand Harbour under cover of darkness, the Olympus was manoeuvring to clear Malta and set a course for Gibraltar as its when it struck a mine and rapidly sank. Only 11 survivors of the 98 crew and passengers onboard made the 7-mile swim back to Malta, as the British forces were probably not immediately aware of the tragedy.
George Malcolmson, Archivist from the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport, Hampshire said, " In terms of men killed, the loss of HMS Olympus ranks as one of the worst RN wartime submarine losses.”
“One of these was the famous Gordon Selby. A legend in the submarine service for surviving the sinking of several boats during the war. Gordon once told me that his lasting memory of the sinking of Olympus was looking back at the submarine as she settled in the water and there he saw a mass of boots and shoes neatly placed in one long line on the upper deck casing. The footwear was placed there by the survivors of the initial mine explosion before they abandoned the submarine and took to the water. “
The Olympus was an Odin class submarine launched in 1927. She served the Royal Australian Navy in China before being repositioned to the Mediterranean to support allied efforts against Italian and German shipping during WW II.
The submarine is 283 feet (86.5m) in length and has a beam of just over 19 feet (6m). It has the distinctive deck gun and 8 bow torpedo tubes of the class. Craig Mullen, an AURORA Founder indicates it is sitting upright, almost as though it was still operational and ready to resume its voyage instead of immobile where it came to rest after the violence that brought it to its 70 year resting place on the seafloor off the coast of Malta.
The mine damage is clearly visible in images collected by the ROV deployed by the AURORA team. The entire wreck site was thoroughly documented to confirm the wreck’s identity.
The wreck, though covered in sea growth and home to numerous sea life is in surprisingly good condition, and its distinctive features are clearly visible. The 4” deck gun is slightly elevated and ready for action and the bow and stern torpedo tubes are clearly identifiable in the wreck.
The evidence of wartime violence surrounds Malta, and AURORA has located numerous modern and ancient marine wreck sites that give historic evidence of the Island’s pivotal role in Mediterranean history.
The AURORA Trust Foundation for Ocean Exploration and Education was founded in 2004 by two famous ocean explorers, Craig Mullen and Ian Koblick to expand man’s knowledge of the ocean and its critical role in the development of civilization. Referred to as the Lewis and Clark of the ocean they have been particularly active in the central Mediterranean where they have located over 20 ancient wrecks that were previously unknown.
Images: Top: HMS Olympus in Malta, Bottom: survivor George Selby
Photos and some text from RNSM
The original story can be found here:
Olympus found
More about the Aurora Trust can be found here:
auroratrust.com

Photographs from the Submariners memorial

2011-11-22T16:40:00.000Z

Lieutenant-Commander Tony Spender

2011-11-01T22:37:00.002Z

“She didn’t stop until she hit the bottom,” he later wrote. “By the grace of God there was a bottom there, though we were way beyond the normal diving depth for an S-class submarine. Almost everything had gone horribly wrong. A torpedo tube reported as dry was in fact flooded, so we were badly out of trim. The forward hydroplanes jammed. The telegraph to the motor room jammed. Then the engine room rating knocked off the telemotor pump as he careered downhill, so the main vents did not shut.”

Lt-Cdr Tony Spender

Other boats — such as Thetis and Vandal — had gone down with all hands during trials; but, as the oxygen and the electric power dwindled and the temperature rose, Spender, who was only 23 at the time, maintained his composure, attempting various manoeuvres in a bid to break Sirdar free of the mud.

He admitted later that it was the first time that he had really had to put his Christian faith to the test. “I told God what I was planning and just asked Him to let me know if it was the wrong thing to do. I didn’t hear from Him so I pushed on.”

He was eventually left with no other option than the unscientific but well-worn trick of “dancing ship”: “The crew formed a chain and literally climbed up to the stern. They carried what weights they could move and they danced up and down. Suddenly there was a tremendous shudder. The depth gauges spun round and we shot up like an express lift.”

When they surfaced, Spender inspected the forecasing, which he found to be “covered in thick mud and stones as far as the aft gun”. It had been a narrow escape.

John Anthony Spender (always known as Tony) was born at Plympton, Devon, on May 8 1920, the youngest of seven children. His father was a newspaperman, the managing editor of the Plymouth-based Western Morning News, which Tony’s grandfather Edward Spender had set up in 1860. His mother was a Champernowne, the last generation of that family (which had arrived with William the Conqueror) to be born and live at Dartington Hall before her brother sold it in 1925.
John Spender, who was brought up a Roman Catholic from the age of seven when his mother converted, was educated at Ampleforth and joined the Navy as an officer cadet in 1937. He was a midshipman in the battleship Barham when war broke out in 1939; and he was on board in December 1940 when she collided with her escort, Duchess, in the Mull of Kintyre.
“Of her [Duchess’s] crew of 130, precious few managed to climb aboard, although amazingly one or two did without even getting their feet wet. The rest were trapped. Arms and heads appeared at the portholes, but the ports were too small for them to struggle through. The cries for help were heart-rending. But we could do nothing for them.”
By the time Barham was sunk by U331 in November 1941, Spender had moved on to Manchester – also later sunk – and then Excellent. He was promoted sub-lieutenant but, after failing to master the art of gunnery, volunteered to join the submarine service.
He was quickly ordered to report to the submarine headquarters HMS Dolphin, going on to run convoys across the Atlantic with Tribune. In March 1942 he joined Seraph as first-lieutenant under Bill Jewell. Having collected US General Mark Clark from Gibraltar on a cloak-and-dagger operation to make contact with the Free French in Algiers, Seraph was used again for another covert operation which lent its name to a subsequent book, The Ship with Two Captains.
The mission was to pick up the French General Henri Giraud from Le Levandou on the south coast of France. Giraud had just escaped from Koenisberg Prison and was seen as a vital cog in the liberation of France. However, he had an aversion to all things British and consented to being picked up only if it was in an American submarine.
Therefore the American captain Jerauld Wright was put on board and the boat raised the Stars and Stripes, temporarily becoming the USS Seraph. It appears, however, that Giraud “did not seem unduly perturbed when he discovered the ruse”.
After taking command of Sirdar in 1943 and surviving the close shave in the mud, Spender took it to join the Eighth Fleet, carrying out patrols off Malaysia and Borneo. There the boat sank a number of enemy vessels — although, as Spender insisted on saying modestly, they were “mainly Japanese fishing boats”. The award of a DSC suggested the targets were slightly larger than that.
Setting sail from Fremantle, Sirdar spent 49 days on patrol over the Christmas of 1944. It was the longest time away from base for any S-class submarine; but the new record – eclipsing that of his good friend Teddy Young, who had taken Storm out for 37 days – was met with equanimity by the controversial Commander Anthony “Crap” Miers.
“You should have waited until tomorrow,” announced an unimpressed Miers. “Fifty days would have sounded much better.”
After the war Spender spent two years, again mainly in the Far East, as captain of Affray before joining the training ship Devonshire. After a spell with the Fleet Air Arm at Yeovilton and in Malta, he joined Naval Intelligence in Hong Kong, probably the happiest time of his Service life, where he was not above foisting his camera on British merchant seamen and even Navy wives who were heading into Communist China, on the off-chance that they might be able to snap some shots of the Chinese Navy.
While many of his wartime colleagues pushed on up to the ranks to admiral, Spender never went beyond lieutenant-commander. Although affable, he could be abrasive with authority and preferred to choose his own course rather than the obvious career path, especially once he had married and started a family.
Further spells, in Gibraltar and at the Admiralty in London, followed before he left the Navy in 1969.
Spender found shore life immeasurably dull, so he returned to sea with the Merchant Navy in the 1970s, first with the coastal shipping company FT Everard and then as a training officer for the United Arab Shipping company, where his cadets often berated him for having only one wife.
If the sea marked one strand of his life, so the Roman Catholic Church marked another. Appalled by the modernisation of the Church as a result of the Second Vatican Council and the outlawing of the Tridentine Mass, Spender was instrumental in setting up the Latin Mass Society, becoming its first treasurer.
A supporter of the French cardinal Marcel Lefebvre and the Society of St Pius X, he enjoyed an extra glass of brandy in July 2007 when Pope Benedict decreed that the Latin Mass could again be heard in Catholic churches.
Tony Spender married, in 1950, Veronica Cookson, who survives him with their five children .
Lieutenant-Commander Tony Spender, born May 8 1920, died October 10 2011

The loss of HMS Triumph 1942.

2011-08-30T18:46:00.001+01:00

This article appeared in the current issue of the Naval Review

It is published here with the permission of the author Gavin Don and the copyright remains with him.

Just after Christmas 1941 the T class submarine Triumph quietly left Alexandria on a patrol into the Aegean Sea. With a ships company of 56, Triumph had spent two years in the Mediterranean, where she had mixed a useful clutch of sinkings with a large number of raiding party landings. Her orders for this trip were the same – land a raiding party off Piraeus on 30 December and then patrol at will, before returning to pick up her party on 9 January 1942. She did not make the rendezvous.

Until now, there has been no evidence of where or how Triumph came to grief. The patrol area she was given was some 300 miles square, and she had ten days in which to hunt. Combining daytime and night time movement patterns –surfaced at night at about 12 knots, and dived during the day at two to three knots - her theoretical range was in the region of 175 miles a day. Absent any other data, she could have been lost almost anywhere in her 300 mile square box, and a search for her wreck would make looking for a needle in a haystack seem easy. There the matter has rested for 70 years.

For me, Triumph’s disappearance has always been a personal matter. My Uncle was her gunnery officer, and since as early as I can remember his portrait has hung over the dining room table, and his medals have rested on the windowsill, along with the small pewter model of his boat bought by as a memento by his mother, my grandmother. While serving, I proudly carried his sword. In my civilian life I have sailed all over the Aegean, and have often wondered idly whether I was passing over his tomb.

So, last year, with a few spare days in London, I decided to visit the records office in Kew to see if I could find any clues that might help me find HMS Triumph’s resting place. A very helpful conversation with Dr Malcolm Llewellyn Jones of the Naval Historical Branch in Portsmouth set me off in the right directions.

I began in a sideways manner, by reading the patrol reports of Triumph and her T boat sisters. My aim was to see if I could get inside the operations head of her CO and officers, in the hope of gleaning some clues as to how she might have behaved in that missing ten days after she dropped her commandos at Piraeus. At what depths did she choose to lurk during daylight? How soon after dark did she surface, and how soon before dawn did she dive? What speed did she loiter at? How often did she signal home? I was hoping that these might throw some light on where she might have gone in the first ten days of January 1942.

I met with a little success. Her pattern was to dive half an hour or so before dawn, and surface half an hour after sunset. She used to keep to about 80 feet during the day, in order to conceal herself from aircraft, and two or three knots was her usual loitering speed. More usefully, I discovered that when picking up a beach party she would always make a daylight periscope reconnaissance of the beach on the day of the RV.

Most of her attacks were carried out within sight of land, the majority of them being gun actions. This was corroborated by a letter my Uncle wrote to his parents in 1941

describing his life, and in particular his delight in carrying out a gun action – five aimed shots fired at the target within 60 seconds of surfacing was the norm. His pure happiness at doing this job permeates his letter, and his competence at it, and at beach landings was mentioned in more than one patrol report.

Armed with these gleanings I bought a chart of the Aegean, only to be confronted with the depressing fact that even with this operational pattern, Triumph could be lying anywhere along thousands of miles of island coastlines, and of course she might not have been lost close inshore at all anyway. The needle seemed well hidden.

Nowhere in the records, whether official history, Naval Staff History, or raw records and data in the ADM files at Kew, was there any report from the Axis of an attack on a submarine in the Aegean in January 1942. Assuming that if Triumph had been attacked and sunk by the Axis that there would be some footprint of this action that would by now have come to light, I decided that she must either have been lost by accident or by mining. I quickly discarded the former. Triumph had been in commission over two years and had a highly competent ship’s company. The loss of a submarine by accident in the second world war was extremely rare. An accident seemed unlikely. So, I began to think about mines.

The risk of Mines was fully acknowledged by Triumph and her sisters. She was fitted with a mine detecting sonar set, but my uncle’s letter reported that this gave so many contacts that it became unusable, and was rarely switched on. Patrol reports also show that the detecting set reported eddies and tide rips as mine contacts, and was not used. It appears that the practice was to accept that mines could appear anywhere, and to hope that one didn’t hit one. The cold-blooded courage needed to live with this reality throughout a patrol bears some thinking about.

In the hope of finding likely minefields to look at, I searched out the hundreds of files containing reports of post-war mine clearance, in the hope that these would report and locate actual Axis minefields. If I could find the minefields, then maybe I could cross-reference with Triumph’s patrol area and her possible movements, and narrow down a smaller area in which to search. Again, this was a dead end. The Mine clearance reports did not report fields as such, but only general areas, and the number of mines swept. They did at least confirm that over a hundred mines were swept in the Saronic Gulf (the sea area off Athens) but by themselves they were not helpful. Discouraged, I felt like giving up.

It often seems the way in life that when you are hunting for something, the last place you look just before giving up gives you the prize. Sitting rather disconsolately at my desk in Kew I was leafing through a final ADM file, contemplating handing it back and heading for home. The file had a miscellany of odd papers in it, yellowing flimsy carbon copies signed by long dead commanders and stamped by long decommissioned ships offices. As I leafed through them I thought, “I’ll just get to the end of this book and then stop”.

The last insert in the file was a single sheet of yellowing A5 carbon copy typed script. A Commander Warner had been despatched to Germany in December 1950 specifically in search of information on the loss of HMS Triumph. This was his report. He found that there were no Axis or Greek reports of attacks on a submarine

in the ten days in January 1942. So far, no news. But there, below this bland statement, I hit paydirt. In a slightly offhand way Cdr Warner recorded two attacks by a submarine on merchant ships in the key ten days.

The first was of no relevance – having taken place on the 4^th January, four days after the raiding party was landed and five before the rendezvous was due.

The second report tells us where Triumph is now lying.

The second attack took place on the 9^th January 1942. The date is key, because the 9^th was also the day upon which Triumph was due to pick up her landing party. Let’s look at the attack first. A torpedo was fired at a tug towing a lighter. The torpedo was sighted, missed, and detonated on the beach. This point is crucial – it is easy for a jumpy and inexperienced sailor to imagine a torpedo track, but not easy to imagine half a ton of Amatol blowing up on a beach a minute or two later. I think it is reasonable to conclude that the torpedo was fired by Triumph (no other submarine was tasked in the same area at the same time).

The attack report is dated, but not timed. However, this omission is not crucial, for the attack is reported as taking place off Cape Sounion (famous for its temple). A quick look at the geography of the coast between Piraeus and Cape Sounion, some 27 miles to the southeast, told me what I needed to know.

Piecing the parts of a simple speed-time-distance equation together, and adding the known operational habits of Triumph, allowed me to work out when the attack was carried out, and to chart Triumph’s track between it and dusk on the 9^th January.

If she followed her established pattern, Triumph would have been on passage to arrive off Piraeus before dusk, probably with an hour of daylight left, in order to make a thorough beach recce of the pickup spot. To do this she would have had to be within three miles of the beach – any further out and her periscope would have been over the horizon and the beach and its hinterland would have been invisible. Hence she needed a beach with a reasonably steeply shelving bottom, and there is just such a piece of coast hard by Piraeus. Her passage to this point would have been by day, at an average of say 3 knots. With sunset at around 1800 (January, Mediterranean) she needed to arrive by 1700, and would probably have aimed to arrive by 1630 to give herself time to get a good fix and avoid any random traffic.

So where was the attack on the lighter? Greek seamen are not a naturally cautious lot. In the Aegean coastlines dive more or less straight into the sea, and Greek mariners are generally happy making headlands alarmingly close inshore. Our lighter was probably heading north after rounding Sounion, so would have been close inshore, probably no more than a few cables, if that, off the beach. Triumph’s torpedo would have been fired from seawards, and thus towards the cape, and when it missed the lighter it duly exploded on the cape. So, with a usual firing range of no more than two miles, Triumph must have been within no more than two and a half miles of the cape.

Triumph’s attack was carried out in daylight (there would have been no way of getting a firing solution at night), and therefore some time after 0700. It must also have been light enough for the lighter’s crew to see the torpedo track.

Allowing fifteen minutes to secure the firing solution, it seems safe to assume that the torpedo detonated no earlier than 0730. The final piece of the puzzle is the distance from Sounion to Piraeus. On a more detailed chart, allowing for some hazards along the way and bearing in mind Triumph’s preferred 80 foot transit depth and an allowance of another hundred feet or so of wriggle room, the track from Sounion to Piraeus totals 27 miles – 9 hours at three knots. Triumph’s pilot would have been gently prodding Lt Huddart, his CO, to get a move on to achieve an arrival time of 1630, and one can picture Huddart at 0730, on his second patrol, ruefully ordering “down periscope”, turning to his navigator and saying “I’m off to breakfast pilot, you have the boat, now let’s get on to Piraeus”. A quiet nine hour passage would have brought them to their destination perfectly on time. It seems likely that Triumph lies today somewhere along that track.

As a bonus, the detailed chart of the Saronic Gulf also has a beautifully prominent shallow spot bang in the middle of the obvious track, which would have given the boat a neat half way fix. As a navigator, I find it more than tempting to think that Triumph passed exactly over this pimple, or at least planned to. For here the trail goes a little cold. All of the water Triumph would have passed through was mineable, so there is no evidence for exactly where she ended her life. However, with modern technology this gap matters little. Armed with a commercial sidescan sonar (available on eBay for £2500) and a comfy yacht, Triumph should be findable within only a few weeks of search time. The possible area is roughly 27 miles long by perhaps two wide, and somewhere down there is a 1300 ton steel object which should show up pretty well once we start looking for her. The Saronic gulf is not scoured by tides or currents, so Triumph should be sitting on the bottom somewhere in that 50 or so square miles, waiting to be discovered.

That plan is now in hand. Meanwhile, my research so far suggests that far from being mined “somewhere in the Aegean, sometime between 30 december 1941 and 9^th Jan 1942, Triumph was lost some time during daylight hours on 9^th January 1942, between Sounion and Piraeus. Perhaps it is time to update the official record.

Someone deep in the bowels of some part of the Naval records system presumably knows where to find the next of kin of her company, and it is to those individuals that this research, and the search that will begin in 2012, is dedicated.

The roll of honour of those lost in HMS Triumph

A Biggleston	Engine Room Artificer 1	DSM
J Cairns	Leading Seaman
G F Clements	Able Seaman
P Coakley	Leading Telegraphist
A Cochrane	Petty Officer Telegraphist
F Collinson	Petty Officer	DSM
E Conner	Able Seaman
G Cross	Able Seaman
R Crummey	Telegraphist	DSM
A Davies	Leading Seaman
W Dempster	Engine Room Artificer 4
R Don	Lieutenant	DSC
C Duffay	Petty Officer	DSM
L Esau	Able Seaman
G Gates	Leading Stoker
J Glen	Engine Room Artificer 4
W Goddard	Stoker 1
W Hall	Able Seaman	MID
G Harrison	Able Seaman
J Hinds	Leading Seaman
J Huddart	Lieutenant
D Hutchinson	Leading Seaman	DSM
M Janvrin	Lieutenant	DSC MID
L Jones	Able Seaman	MID
C Kelly	Leading Stoker
T Kilty	Leading Signalman
F Lancaster	Leading Seaman
W McGee	Stoker 1
R Nott	Chief Petty Officer
C Oâ€™Brien	Petty Officer Cook
T Phillips	Chief Engine Room Artificer
W Ranson	Stoker 1
H Regent	Engine Room Artificer 4
A Robinson	Stoker 1
E Rosendale	Stoker 1
C Sheldon	Stoker Petty Officer	BEM MID
H Stephens	Engine Room Artificer 4
W Stockham	Chief Stoker	BEM DSM
J Taylor	Able Seaman
R Theobald	Petty Officer	DSM
J Turner	Stoker 1
J Underwood	Able Seaman
G Waterall	Midshipman
R Waye	Leading Telegraphist	DSM
W White	Telegraphist	DSM
W Wickham	Stoker Petty Officer
F Wilkinson	Engine Room Artificer 2
E Wilson	Stoker 1	DSM
R Wilson	Able Seaman
G Wright	Lieutenant (E)	MBE

HMS Medway football 1932

2011-08-22T12:57:00.003+01:00

I have finally obtained a copy of the photo mentioned in the South Wales Argus article I blogged about in March..Linton is on the top row,third from the right.

The obverse of the picture states that this was a football match with the HMS Medway(submarine depot ship) team playing against a Peninsula side in Hong Kong 1932

I will try and provide further detail about some of the players as I discover it.

Linton painting

2011-08-22T11:04:00.003+01:00

I discovered this painting through a random search of Google.
The painting is held by the Royal Navy Submarine museum at GosportRNSM,
accession number B23/14/92.
It is by an unknown artist,and is oil on board and measures 26x15cm.I believe that it used to hang within HMS Dolphin ,the former submarine base next to the museum and the spiritual home of the submarine service.

Other examples of paintings held by the museum can be found here:
RNSM paintings

Note that the artist has mistakenly misspelt the word Turbulent

Captain George Hunt

2011-08-22T10:22:00.003+01:00

Captain George Hunt

Captain George Hunt, who died on August 16 aged 95, sank more enemy ships than any other British submariner of the war, commanding patrols that were considered of “unsurpassed” daring and brilliance.

His successes were based on a technical mastery that was allied to steely courage, and for these qualities he was awarded a DSC and Bar and a DSO and Bar as well as being twice mentioned in despatches – making him one of the nation’s most highly-decorated naval officers.

Perhaps his greatest feat came on June 27 1944, when he detected the 3,317-ton cargo ship Cap Blanc close to Cap Antibes; despite her four escorts he managed to sink her with four torpedoes. He was hunted for an hour, but eluded the depth charges and, as he slowly drew away, spotted the 5,260-ton tanker Pallas under tow of two tugs, with five more escorts and four aircraft circling overhead.

Though conditions were good for an anti-submarine chase, Hunt succeeded in penetrating the strong escort “screen”, and at 08h31 fired his last two torpedoes from 1,500 yards: both hit.

He dived to 300ft, near to maximum safe diving depth, to endure what he knew would be a heavy counter-attack; he stopped counting the depth charges after the first 100. The detonations started several leaks but none proved catastrophic and Hunt crept away until, at about noon, he came to periscope depth and saw his enemy hull down on the horizon.

His senior officer wrote that while the first attack was “brilliant”, the second – mounted only three hours later – was “the most superlative exhibition... [achieving] an unseen, undetected position inside such a massive and violently zigzagging screen suggests consummate technical skill, but shows, moreover, determination and courage of the highest order”. Hunt, who was awarded a Bar to his existing DSO, modestly preferred to describe the presence of so many escorts as “very off-putting”.

By the end of the war he held the title of deadliest submarine captain: of the 68 torpedoes he fired, 47 per cent were hits. While Lt-Cdr David Wanklyn, VC, sank most tonnage, Hunt, who attributed his success to his “marvellous team on-board”, sank most ships.
George Edward Hunt was born on July 4 1916 at Milton of Campsie, north of Glasgow, where his grandfather had founded a calico printing works. His father was a colonial officer in Africa and George was a child of Empire. Sent back home at the age of seven, he recalled that that on the solo train journey from Tilbury a luggage label on his coat read simply: “Moffat, Scotland”. He never saw his father again, but was educated at St Ninian’s and cared for on his holidays by two doting aunts.
Aged 13 he joined the Merchant Navy training ship Conway in the Mersey, and at 16 he joined the Glasgow-based Henderson Line, which sailed on routes to India and Burma; his first ship as deck cadet was the 5,000-ton passenger-cargo ship Arracan. In 1930 he was commissioned as a Midshipman RNR, and in 1938 transferred to the Royal Navy.
After a year of technical and tactical courses Hunt spent a short time in the destroyer Foxhound before volunteering for submarine service, training in L26 and L27. He then joined Unity as the signals and navigation officer and was soon awarded his first DSC for gallant service on several successful patrols.
On the night of April 29 1940 Unity was accidentally run down in fog by the Norwegian merchant ship Alte Jarl, which sliced into the forward section of the submarine. All but two men escaped, but after two others were swept away by the tide, Hunt helped keep the rest of the crew together until they were rescued. For this act of leadership he was mentioned in despatches.
Instead of survivor’s leave Hunt was appointed, in May and June 1940, as liaison officer to the Dutch submarine O10, patrolling the North Sea and covering the evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk. From July to December he undertook patrols in the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay as first-lieutenant of the submarine H31, and from December to March 1941 he was liaison officer of the Polish submarine Sokol.
Next Hunt was made the first-lieutenant of the submarine Proteus, which deployed to the Mediterranean. There, on February 8 1942, Proteus made a night attack on what the captain thought was a U-boat, firing two torpedoes on the surface at 700 yards from her stern tubes, without result. As Proteus turned to fire her bow torpedoes, the enemy ship, which turned out to be the Italian torpedo boat Sagittario, rammed Proteus in an attempt to sink her.
Proteus lost her port forward hydroplane and water began to pour into the torpedo room. As the crew scrambled to plug holes and drain the torpedo room, Hunt’s leadership and experience proved crucial in saving the boat from sinking; Proteus was eventually able to proceed slowly at periscope depth back to her base. Hunt, meanwhile, was awarded a Bar to his DSC.
He passed the submarine commanding officers’ “perisher” in April 1942 and took command of H33 and then of H50, which were employed as “clockwork mice” for destroyers practising their anti-submarine work.
It was in October 1942 that he took command of the submarine with which he would forge his reputation. This was known as P53 before Churchill decreed that all submarines should have names instead of numbers; Hunt settled on Ultor, after Mars Ultor, or Mars the Avenger.
After a very cold and unsuccessful patrol off North Cape, Norway, Ultor was sent to the Mediterranean in early 1943. There her fortunes changed entirely.
Hunt’s first success came in April, when he fired on, and sank, the 2,150-ton German motor vessel, Penerf. This scalp was soon followed by those of an auxiliary minesweeper and a large merchantman, both Italian, before in August Ultor accounted for the 800-ton Italian destroyer, Lince.
Other operations included a shore bombardment, landing special forces, and carrying manned torpedoes – known as chariots. In May 1944 Hunt was again mentioned in despatches during the Allied landings at Anzio, when Ultor was used as beacon to guide landing craft to their beaches.
At the end of the war Hunt took command of the T-class submarine, Taku, and following the conclusion of the conflict he was first-lieutenant of the aircraft carrier Triumph.
But by 1947 he was again in command of a submarine, Ambush, on trials under the ice of the Arctic Ocean, an experience which he described as a“memorable and unnerving experience”. In 1948 Hunt commanded the perisher course and was responsible for passing British officers fit to command submarines. Subsequently he was, until 1952, operations officer on the staff of the flag officer submarines.
After a short time as executive officer of the aircraft carrier Theseus, Hunt was promoted captain and went to run the Admiralty Underwater Detection Establishment at Portland, Dorset.
His next appointment was in command of the anti-submarine frigate Bigbury Bay on the West Indies station; as senior naval officer West Indies he took the ship to Jamestown, Virginia, and hosted President Eisenhower on-board during celebrations to mark the 350th anniversary of the establishment of the first successful English settlement in North America.
Hunt’s last two appointments were as chief of staff to the flag officer submarines and director of naval equipment but, at the age of 46, he realised that the Navy had few other challenges to offer. He migrated to Australia in 1963 and settled in Brisbane, where he worked until 1976 for the British High Commission.
George Hunt married Phoebe Silson, a fellow Scot, in 1939; she predeceased him in 2005 and he is survived by their daughter.

An interesting find!

2011-03-23T21:44:00.002Z

Today is the sixty-eight anniversary of HMS Turbulent failing to return from her last patrol.I was searching the internet to see if anything new had appeared and I found this article on the South Wales Argus.

Newport VC hero’s pic found in suitcase

4:50pm Wednesday 23rd March 2011

AN early picture of Newport submarine hero 'Tubby' Linton has surfaced after almost 80 years - and 68 years after the VC hero's death.
The ace submarine-commander-to-be is pictured in 1932 at Hong Kong naval bases as a member of the soccer team of HMS Medway, a submarine depot ship.
"At this time he is a junior officer, probably a Sub-Lieutenant" said Mr Doug Piddington of Newport branch of the Royal Naval Association who has the picture.
"It is certainly the earliest picture we have of him as a serving naval officer and there is one other interesting thing about it.
"Commander Linton as he was to become is looking very comfortable in soccer kit.
"This was a man who had a rugby trial for England.
"Although he won fame as a submariner it seems likely that he was playing for the depot ship Medway rather than for one of the subs she supported.
'If he had been playing for a submarine he would almost certainly be on a team got together by a submarine squadron."
The stocky build of Malpas-born John Wallace Linton is already apparent in the picture, a copy of which has been donated to Newport council.
In the years that followed the snap, Tubby, as he was nicknamed, rose through the commissioned ranks of the service and at the war's start was the Navy's most skilled practitioner of submarine warfare.
From shortly after the time of her commissioning in 1941 until March 12 1943 when she disappeared with all hands HMS Turbulent stalked the Mediterranean in search of German and Italian warships and merchant vessels taking supplies to North Africa.
She sank 52,000 tons of shipping and destroyed three railway trains by gunfire during a patrol of 254 days.
"HMS Turbulent was a 'T' class submarine which are predecessors of the current Trafalgar class of subs which are currently on deployment off the coast of Libya" Mr Piddington added.
"The present submarines are serving in waters that would have been Tubby's happy hunting grounds."
Only last week Newport's mayor Councillor Bill Langsford joined members of the Royal Naval Association in dropping a wreath of poppies honouring Linton and his crew into the River Usk 68 years after the Turbulent and her crew were lost.
After racking up a huge tonnage of enemy shipping the Turbulent was sunk off Corsica probably by Italian depth-charges.
Her wreckage has never been found. Commander Linton was awarded the Victoria Cross - Britain's highest award for valour - posthumously.
"The photograph is from the collection of Lieutenant-Commander W F Haselfoot who is also in the picture" Mr Piddington who served in the Royal Navy aboard aircraft carriers said.
"It was in an old suitcase.
"It's a jolly good thing somebody spotted it otherwise a little bit of Newport's history would have been sunk without trace."

http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/8927856.Newport_VC_hero___s_pic_found_in_suitcase/

The article shows a small copy of the photograph and I will try and obtain a larger copy for the blog

Lieutenant-Commander Barklie Lakin, DSO, DSC and bar,

2011-03-17T23:12:00.000Z

Submarines of Britain's Royal Navy have sunk more than 1,250,000 tons of Axis shipping in the Mediterranean alone since war began. As commander of His Majesty's Submarine Safari, and other submarines, handsome, whimsical, young (29) Lieut. Richard Barklie Lakin, D.S.O., D.S.C., R.N., has had his share of kills. In his words, this is part of his story as he told it in New York City last week:
I chose submarine service because I was lazy. Submariners got more pay, and had more time in port. That appealed to me. I was navigating officer on H.M.S. Ursula [real name, use permitted by the British Admiralty], out five days on a patrol in the Helgoland Bight when war began.
"White Christmas." In 1941 I went as first lieutenant of H.M.S. Utmost. It was after the very first attack on a convoy that I was depth-bombed for the first time. None of us knew what to expect from a depth charge. They were most frightening. I remember standing, holding onto the brass ladder as these things went off. With the first few bangs there was a shower of the white cork which lines the hull to absorb moisture. We called the downfall a "white Christmas."
Our man on the ASDIC could hear the destroyer coming, coming, and he reported: "Destroyer closing, destroyer closing," and you knew sooner or later it would be over the top. Then you hear the sort of faint splash-splash of the propeller getting faster and faster. This is the most frightening time. You hear this thing going over and you wonder, "Has he dropped it now?" I forget how many depth charges were dropped, 40 or 50. I remember saying to myself: "This is hell, and I am not going to stay in submarines any more. I just can't take it." I looked around. The men were not very happy, and were wetting their lips a bit. Well, when we got back in harbor, we felt pretty good because we had sunk five ships of 20,000 total tonnage. We had a hell of a blind and plenty of hooch. After that, I was ready for the next patrol.
"A Very Nice Bang." I went back to my old submarine, the Ursula, in 1942 but this time as captain. Our first patrol was to cover one of the convoys to Russia. It was badly beaten up. The submarines were along to cover in case the Tirpitz and the Scheer came out. They did. A friend of mine in another submarine made a radio signal to say they were out, but those two great disappearers went right back in and we didn't see them again.
Submarines were chosen to act as beacons in the North African landing. We took position about ten miles from Oran to shine lights and guide the invasion fleet. It was a very easy job. Then we pushed north, off the Balearic Islands. One afternoon, creeping toward "Gib," my officer of the watch sighted what he thought was a distant aircraft carrier. On a closer look it turned out to be a submarine. My orders were like everyone else's: if you see a German U-boat, fire everything you have got. We had six torpedoes; we fired all and held our breath. There was a very nice bang at the end of the right time. Through the periscope I saw he had been hit just behind the conning tower and sank very quickly. It was quite fun; it gives you quite a kick. His stern sank lower and lower, and his bow came up out of the water, right straight up, and woof!
I was concerned with getting evidence. People always disbelieve you, particularly senior officers and particularly about submarines. I had to get a body; if you can get a body that is best of all. Next best, a bit of wreckage. If there are no bodies, and no wreckage, and there is a little oil on the surface, you bottle some of the oil, take it home, and they either prove it is diesel fuel or say it is something else. We couldn't get any evidence. But we got credit for the sinking and I collected a D.S.O. That is the standard payment for a submarine; a friend of mine has three.
"A Beautiful Blaze." In the Gulf of Genoa, I had marvelous orders. I was told to go out and make as much nuisance as I could. It had become quite a sport to shoot up trains; I had never tried it before. Somewhat southwest of Savona, we spent a whole day watching the railroad. Just after dark we got about 400 yards offshore. A train popped out of the tunnel and we fired. The first shell exploded just inside the cab where the driver was. Several of our shells hit the posts which carry the electric line. It was a 5,000-volt system. For about a mile there was a solid sheet of flame where the wires swung against the ground. The bushes and stuff were dry. They caught fire, and made a most beautiful blaze.
We went on to Maurizio about five miles away, where there was a large collection of olive-oil tanks. We went slowly into port, making no noise, with the gun manned, keeping a very good lookout in the darkness. I could see the Italians driving about in cars, and every now & then a chap would go by with his girl friend, smoking a cigaret. I could hear the dogs barking. It was all frightfully peaceful. I felt we were swine to interrupt it.
The third shot carried away a privy on the end of the pier, containing, I think, the night watchman. We hit the target about 25 times. We kept it up about a quarter-hour before the sleepy Italians realized somebody was shooting at them. They didn't do very much except fire some star shells seven miles out to sea. As we slid out they got a light on us. A couple of shells fell close. Next day they claimed to have sunk us.*
Escape and Reward. On another patrol we waylaid a convoy. It was bright moonlight and rather difficult to carry out an attack on the surface because eventually we would be sighted. I hadn't appreciated they were zigzagging. When I was just ready to fire, everything all set, the fellow I was attacking zigged straight towards me. I couldn't get deep quite soon enough and the ship ran over the top of us. It smashed both periscopes, and took away quite large chunks of the bridge. We snooped beneath the convoy until they had passed. We were lucky to be alive, I think. There was dead silence in the control room and one of the sailors got up and came to me and said: "Excuse me, sir, can I go to the lavatory?"
One of my last jobs in the Mediterranean was to serve as a beacon for the landing in Sicily. We had, as a kind of escort, a PC-boat. The Germans started to dive-bomb us, and old PC turned out to be a very enthusiastic man with his guns. He put up a very fine barrage.
We went towards Malta. We parsed two LCIs also going toward Malta. One of them wigwagged: "Am I right for Sicily?" They were lost. It staggered me that a fellow could be in an invasion and not know north from south. We set them right.
For taking part in this I got the [U.S.] Legion of Merit. I got it for having a good time.
^{* As a submarine commander on this and other patrols Lieut. Lakin sank 15 ships totaling about 25,000 tons. He took three prisonsers — two Germans and a French-trained dog he decided to call Pétain. All three came off the Sainte Marguérite II, which Lieut. Lakin described as "built in Dublin, sold to the French, seized by the Germans, sunk by me." Once Lieut. Lakin was under continuous attack by two destroyers for 38 hours.}Distinguished submarine commander who fought in the Mediterranean and became chairman of Vickers-Armstrongs after the war
During the Second World War, Richard Barklie Lakin commanded three submarines, two of which took part in the desperate campaign to establish control of the Mediterranean, ensure the survival of Malta and starve Field Marshal Rommel’s Afrika Corps of essential supplies. For his gallantry and professionalism he was awarded the DSO and two DSCs.
At the age of 8 he survived a car accident that killed his father. His subsequent survival through many perilous occasions has been attributed to having been born with a caul, believed by some societies to be an omen of good luck.
After graduating from Dartmouth naval college in 1932 and serving in the cruiser Sussex in the Mediterranean, Lakin volunteered for submarines and was first appointed to the Narwhal to learn the ropes as the “4th hand”. Lakin’s lively hobbies included racing a Bugatti at Brooklands and riding the fastest motorbike then available — a 1000c HRD Rapide — for which he had obtained a one-piece waterproof garment from Barbour. In May 1938 he joined the Ursula as navigating officer, captained by the celebrated Lieutenant-Commander George Phillips, DSO, GM, who, fed up with standard Admiralty oilskins, quite unsuitable for the really wet conditions on the conning towers of small submarines, seized upon Lakin’s garment and adapted it to a two-piece version which, after testing with a fire-hose, became standard submariners’ clothing, famously named the “Ursula-suit”.
Lakin’s appointment to the new submarine Thetis was luckily cancelled in favour of a Lieutenant Frederick Woods who was the torpedo officer on March 3, 1939 when Thetis sank during her initial trials in Liverpool Bay as a result of some enamel paint having blocked a torpedo tube test cock, thus not revealing that the tube bow door was open. Despite frantic rescue attempts, 99 lives were lost.
At the outbreak of war he was appointed instead as second-in-command of the elderly H32, operating in the North Sea. He was mentioned in dispatches before being sent to the submarine Utmost in November 1940, again as second-in-command. Arriving off Gibraltar, Utmost was mis-identified and rammed by the destroyer Encounter and took a month to repair. Subsequently, a successful series of patrols which sank Italian supply ships and landed or recovered agents on three occasions resulted in the award of Lakin’s first DSC, his captain earning a DSO.
Returning home for the submarine commanding officer’s course, or “perisher”, Lakin was appointed in December 1941 in command of the H43 which, with a hurriedly assembled crew of trainees, was deployed with several other submarines to attack the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with the cruiser Prinz Eugen as they made their celebrated “Channel Dash” from Brest to safety in Germany.
He took command of the Ursula at home in March 1942, joining the “Fighting 10th” submarine squadron in Malta during the protracted Mediterranean battle in which British submarines suffered a 50 per cent loss rate. In early November Ursula was stationed off Oran as one of 21 submarines protecting Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa. Later a sabotage team was successfully landed and recovered near Genoa and an anti-submarine vessel sunk by gunfire. Ordered to divert Axis activities away from invasion beaches, Lakin was commended by the expeditionary force commander for his efforts which included bombardments of oil tanks and railways and the sinking of a supply ship by gunfire. In December he sank a large heavily escorted steamer but got too close to another and was run down, losing his periscopes. For his part in Operation Torch and kindred operations he was awarded the DSO.
By April 1943 the tide had turned in the Mediterranean. Lakin’s command of the Safari continued that submarine’s exceptional war record, he being awarded a second DSC for four successful patrols. After acting as a navigational beacon for the invasion of Sicily, for which he was awarded the American Legion of Merit, the Safari attacked and sank by torpedo and gunfire a variety of petrol carriers, barges, a minelayer and minesweeper, expending all her ammunition in a final patrol which the dry official history describes as “audacious”.
Having taken Safari home for a refit, Lakin followed the movement of the centre of gravity of the war with an appointment as British liaison officer on the staff of the American commander of all submarines in the Pacific. Never one for sitting in an office, Lakin went on patrol in several USN submarines, acting as mentor and submarine warfare instructor to inexperienced captains. Some of his experiences were alarming: penetrating into the Sea of Japan through the Tshushima minefield in the USS Crevalle and being surprised and bombed by a floatplane while on the surface off Rabaul.
During his final tour in the Royal Navy, Lakin looked after a host of surrendered U-boats at Londonderry before they were scuttled or scrapped. In 1946 he retired and joined the engineering company Vickers-Armstrongs, where he had successful 30-year career, becoming chairman and chief executive. Always an ingenious man with an enthusiasm for practical engineering that was evidenced by the well-equipped workshop which accompanied all the family moves, he was also known for his enlightened man-management. When asked why there was never a strike at Vickers Elswick, the union convenor replied: “Because the Commander will always see us right.” The Suez crisis of 1956 broke when he was managing Tel el Kebir, the British Army’s huge engineering and supply base in Egypt. While his family was repatriated, Lakin was interned for six months. He later worked for Joseph Isherwood Shipping Architects before finally retiring to the Isle of Wight.
His wife, Pamela Jackson-Taylor, whom he married in 1936, died in 1981. His second wife, Pansy Phillips, also pre-deceased him. His devoted companion, Joy Almond, supported his final 17 years. He is survived by the three sons and three daughters of his first marriage.
Lieutenant-Commander Barklie Lakin, DSO, DSC and bar, submarine captain and businessman, was born on October 8, 1914. He died on March 1, 2011, aged 96

Captain Bill Jewell

2010-12-11T10:36:00.000Z

Following on from the article about Seraph is this obituary of Bill Jewell

As wartime commander of the submarine HMS Seraph, Captain Bill Jewell, who has died aged 90, carried out missions not only stranger than fiction but also so secret that even now many details have yet to emerge. The most macabre was Operation Mincemeat, one of the most successful disinformation exercises of the war, which deceived the Germans about allied intentions to invade Italy in 1943. It became the subject of several books, and a 1956 film, The Man Who Never Was. As part of the ruse, a still-unidentified corpse was taken from a Strathclyde mortuary, dressed as a Royal Marine officer and given a briefcase stuffed with dummy secret papers chained to his wrist.
The body, in a metal container, was loaded aboard the Seraph, which sailed to the Gulf of Cadiz, off the small Spanish coastal town of Huelva. The crew had no idea of the purpose of the mission for many years afterwards. Jewell, then a lieutenant, had the container hauled out at dead of night, and ordered everyone else below, saying he was about to release a new meteorological device. He then conducted an impromptu burial service and slipped "Major Martin" overboard.
The body floated ashore on the tide, and a few days later was buried at Huelva cemetery with full military honours by the neutral Spanish authorities. Through the British diplomatic missions in Spain, a wreath was sent by the dead man's notional girlfriend. The briefcase was formally handed over, apparently undisturbed.
Evidence that the Spanish fascist government had copied the papers and passed them to the Germans emerged soon afterwards. Fortifications on the Nazi-occupied French island of Corsica were built up, while German troops were sent to reinforce neighbouring Italian Sardinia. Field-Marshal Rommel was sent to Greece to inspect its defences, and two German armoured divisions in mid-battle on the Russian front were put on standby for transfer to the Balkans.
But Sicily was the real objective. Thanks largely to Seraph's deception, Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily by nine allied divisions, achieved surprise, went well and was followed by the assault on southern Italy.
Jewell was born in the Seychelles, where his father was in the Colonial Service. He joined the navy from Oundle school, Northamptonshire, and volunteered for submarines in 1936, qualifying for command in 1941. Seraph was launched that October and Jewell was its first commander. He led his first patrol in the north Atlantic in July 1942, when the boat was mistakenly identified as German and fired upon by the RAF. Assigned to the Mediterranean, Seraph was involved in preparing for Operation Torch, the allied invasion of north Africa in November 1942.
Jewell was ordered to transport the American General Mark Clark to Algeria for negotiations with French commanders, whom the allies wanted to win over. Clark's staff were put ashore in rubber boats, and Seraph hid out at sea for the day. By evening, the weather had turned rough and Jewell extricated the Americans, whose presence had been discovered, by risking his boat in shallow and choppy coastal waters. The party was delivered safely to Gibraltar six days later.
Seraph's next assignment was Operation Kingpin, to fetch the French General Henri Giraud from Vichy France, where he was in hiding after escaping from German internment. He was thought to be the only man who could deliver French north African forces to the allies. Unfortunately, Giraud shared with General de Gaulle a hearty dislike of the British, and pettily refused to be rescued by them.
So, in a unique charade, HMS Seraph became USS Seraph under the spurious command of a United States navy officer, and solemnly flew the Stars and Stripes for the rendezvous with Giraud's dinghy. The 40-man British crew entered into the spirit of things by farcically pretending to be American sailors.
For these unusual missions, and his more orthodox successes against enemy shipping, Jewell was awarded the MBE and the DSC, as well as French and American decorations. At the end of the war, it was discovered that he had broken his neck in two places in a fall in 1941. But he served on in other submarines, rising to captain in command of a submarine flotilla.
Jewell commanded several submarines and, in 1948, became Captain 3rd Submarine Flotilla. He was a director of the RN Staff College at Greenwich and also worked on Mountbatten's staff, where he took pride in having predicted Iraqi threats to Kuwait in the early 1960s, persuading the Navy to send ships to the Gulf to forestall an invasion. Mountbatten told him that he had been too precocious, and should have waited until he was an admiral before proving himself so right.
Jewell retired in 1963, and worked for the Mitchell and Butler brewery in Birmingham, where he was also life president of the Submarine Old Comrades' Association.

In 1945 a doctor found that Jewell had broken two vertebrae when he had fallen down a hatch four years earlier, which meant that he had fought the rest of the war with a broken neck. In 1998 Jewell fell again, but this time he was not so lucky: he was paralysed from the neck down, and was confined to a wheelchair at the Royal Star and Garter Home, Richmond.
His wife Rosemary, whom he married in 1944, died in 1996. Their two sons and one daughter survive him.
· Norman Limbury Auchinleck 'Bill' Jewell, naval officer, born October 24 1913; died August 18 2004

Operation Mincemeat-HMS Seraph

2010-12-11T10:12:00.006Z

I am currently preparing an article about my visit to the Imperial War Museum in London but in the meantime I offer the following story:

In 1939, Ian Fleming, an imaginative chap in Naval intelligence, drew up a list of top secret schemes with which to outfox the Nazis. Number 28 was headed: “A suggestion (not a very nice one)”. Fleming’s idea was that “a corpse dressed as an airman with dispatches in his pockets could be dropped on the coast” so that the fake documents in his possession might lead the Germans, ever so sneakily, right up the garden path.

“There is no difficulty in obtaining corpses,” Fleming observed, “but it would have to be a fresh one.” It was the sort of preposterous pipe dream that Fleming’s superiors could easily have dismissed as “something out of a James Bond novel”. Except for the fact that Fleming had yet to write one. So instead they filed his not very nice suggestion away and waited for a suitable opportunity. It came in 1943.

The Allies, now in the ascendant, were itching to invade Italy. Sicily was the obvious place to start, but Hitler knew this as well as Churchill. A diversion was required and so Fleming’s morbid scheme was brought to life as Operation Mincemeat. Last night, BBC Two’s atmospheric documentary supplied a blow-by-blow account of how this macabre hoax, “perhaps the greatest military deception since the Trojan horse”, changed the course of the War.
Many viewers will have known the story. It has been told many times, most famously in Ronald Neame’s 1956 film The Man Who Never Was. But although BBC Two’s Operation Mincemeat was at a considerable dramatic disadvantage – it had to rely on photographs, to-camera interviews and stilted re-enactments – it still brought the tale alive with an impressive marshalling of the facts. This was appropriate because the devilish cleverness of Operation Mincemeat was in the detail.
Once the team had identified a suitable corpse – that of a Welsh vagrant named Glyndwr Michael who had committed suicide – they gave him a new name (William Martin), a new job (in the Royal Marines), and a new identity. Authenticity was everything. One officer wore Martin’s uniform every day to give it a lived-in look. Each item in Martin’s wallet was painstakingly prepared, including a snapshot of his fake fiancée (in reality a secretary at MI5) and letters written by “Pam” to him. Stranger still, Martin’s underpants were commandeered, for reasons too long and silly to explain here, from the late Oxford historian HAL Fisher.
With the backstory in place, copywriters spent days drafting a fake letter from Lt Gen Archibald Nye, Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff, to General Alexander hinting that the Allies were planning to attack Nazi-occupied Greece. But they couldn’t get the wording to ring true. Until, that is, they hit upon the blindingly obvious solution: ask Lt Gen Nye to write it himself.
Martin’s corpse was ditched in the sea off northern Spain with a briefcase chained to his wrist. It was found by fishermen and handed to the Spanish authorities before photographs of the “secret” documents in the briefcase were passed on, via the Nazis’ top spy in Spain, “a champion tennis player with manicured fingernails”, all the way up the German command chain to Hitler himself. And the Fuhrer, like his security staff, was completely fooled. Goebbels, who as Minister for Propaganda knew a thing or two about telling porkies, did wonder in his private diary whether it was all “an elaborate and very British hoax” but didn’t dare contradict Hitler. And so Mincemeat carried the day: the Germans pulled troops out of Sicily and fortified Greece; the Allies invaded Sicily with relatively low casualties.
The story of Mincemeat is such a ripping, gripping yarn you could hear it a hundred times without getting bored. Yet what emerged most vividly last night was the Technicolor characters involved. Nowadays, espionage is presumably an increasingly digital pursuit, conducted by pasty men and women sitting at PCs. By contrast, Mincemeat was lead by Flight Lt Charles Cholmondeley, the proud owner of a waxed moustache and the kind of period surname that seems to have been phased out in the 1940s. (In his spare time Cholmondeley studied the mating habits of insects and hunted partridge. With a revolver.)
In a similar vein, the coroner who provided Michael’s corpse went by the magnificent name of Sir Bentley Purchase. After giving the Mincemeat team extremely complicated directions to St Pancras morgue, Sir Bentley added, “Alternatively, you could get run over.”

The mission was underpinned by this kind of dry, black wit. Indeed, this might have been one of the reasons for its success. Churchill apparently wanted British spies to have “corkscrew minds” precisely because Hitler “thought in straight lines” and his agents were, in comparison to Cholmondeley and co, “dull, humourless and predictable”. When I heard this, I found myself giving an involuntary patriotic salute.

Major Martin, in his Royal Marines battledress and coat, was placed in a steel canister designed by Charles Fraser-Smith. The canister was filled with dry ice and sealed up. When the dry ice sublimated, it filled the canister with carbon dioxide and drove out any oxygen, thus preserving the body without refrigeration. Cholmondeley and Montagu delivered it to Holy Loch, Scotland where it was taken on board the British submarine HMS Seraph. Seraph's commander, (Lt. "Bill" Jewell) and crew had previous special operations experience. Jewell told his men that the canister contained a top secret meteorological device to be deployed near Spain.
On 19 April, Seraph set sail. On 30 April, Seraph arrived at a point about a mile off the coast of Spain, near the town of Huelva. The British knew that there was an Abwehr agent in Huelva who was friendly with the Spanish officials there.
At 0430 on 30 April, Seraph surfaced. Lt. Jewell had the canister brought up on deck, then sent all his crew below except the officers. He briefed them on the details of the secret operation. They opened the canister, fitted Major Martin with a life jacket, and attached his briefcase with the papers. Jewell read the 39th Psalm, although the burial service was not specified in the orders, and the body was gently pushed into the sea where the tide would bring it ashore. Jewell afterwards sent a message to the Committee: "MINCEMEAT completed". The canister was shot through so that it would sink.
The body was found at around 9:30 a.m. by a local fisherman, José Antonio Rey Maria.

HMS Seraph completed a number of special missions:

Seraph first saw action in support of Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa; her first combat mission, under the command of Lieutenant Norman "Bill" Jewell, was carrying out a periscope reconnaissance of the Algerian coast during the last two weeks of September 1942.
Upon her return to Gibraltar, Seraph was assigned to Operation Flagpole, the carrying of General Dwight Eisenhower's deputy, Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, to North Africa for secret negotiations with Vichy French officers. Loaded with collapsible canoes, submachine guns, walkie-talkies, and other supplies, the submarine carried Clark, two other United States Army generals, United States Navy Captain Jerauld Wright, several other officers, and three British Commandos.
Seraph then sailed to the Algerian coast on 19 October, 1942. On the night of 20 October her passengers disembarked ashore. The operation was very important as it helped to reduce French opposition to the Torch landings (although the French were not informed that the troop ships were already on their way and the landings were due in just a few days).
General Clark and his party were then picked up on 25 October by the submarine after some inadvertent delays. After an uneventful return journey, Seraph landed her party in Gibraltar on 25 October.

Operation Kingpin: "the ship with two captains"

On 27 October, Jewell was ordered to set sail again to the coast of southern France for a secret rendezvous. Seraph was ordered to patrol up and down the coast until she received a signal giving her the name of the port from which she was to pick up her passengers. On the night of 5 November she finally arrived at a location some 20 miles (32 km) east of Toulon, as arranged to secretly take aboard French General Henri Giraud, his son, and three staff officers for a meeting with Eisenhower in Gibraltar, with the intention to enlist the support of the pro-Vichy forces at Oran and Casablanca to the Allied cause.
In picking up the general's party, a bit of legerdemain was needed: because Giraud flatly refused to deal with the British, and there was no US boat within 3,000 miles (4,800 km), HMS Seraph briefly became the "USS Seraph", flying the US Navy ensign. Nominally the sub came under the command of Captain Jerauld Wright, who was earlier involved in the Flagpole operation, although Jewell took care of actual operations. In the spirit of things the British crew affected American accents that they imitated from the movies. Of course, it fooled nobody — including Giraud, who had been told of the deception by Wright.
After the pick-up, on 7 November Seraph transferred her charges to a PBY Catalina flying boat that was sent from Gibraltar to search for her after they lost contact with the sub due to a problem with her main radio.
On 24 November, Seraph sailed on her first war patrol in the Mediterranean. She was soon called upon to join other submarines in carrying U.S. and British Commandos for reconnaissance operations in the area. On 2 December 1942 she torpedoed and damaged the Italian merchant ship Puccini. Later that month, on 23 December she rammed and damaged a U-boat, sustaining sufficient damage herself to necessitate repairs and refit back to England.

Operation Mincemeat

Seraph returned to Blyth, England for a much needed overhaul and leave on 28 January, 1943. A few weeks later, Jewell was briefed at the Admiralty on an assignment to be carried out during Seraph's return to the Mediterranean. She set sail again on 19 April, carrying a special passenger. This was a corpse in a metal canister, packed in dry ice, and dressed in a Royal Marines uniform. There was also a briefcase containing faked "secret documents".
This mission was part of Operation Barclay, a plan to convince the Germans that the Allies intended to land in Greece and Sardinia, and not Sicily.
In the early hours of 30 April Seraph surfaced off the coast of Spain, near the port of Huelva. Jewell and his officers launched the body and briefcase in the water. Jewell then radioed the signal "MINCEMEAT completed" while the submarine continued to the Mediterranean to resume its patrol. The body was picked up by the Spanish, who decided it was a courier killed in an aircraft accident. The false documents were passed to the Germans and led them to divert forces from the defence of Sicily.

Seraph remained in active service after the war. In 1955 she was fitted with armour plating and used as a torpedo target boat. She was attached to a squadron commanded by none other than her first skipper, now Captain Jewell. She remained in commission until 25 October, 1962, 21 years to the day after her launching.
When she arrived at Briton Ferry for scrapping on 20 December, 1965, parts from her conning tower were preserved as a memorial at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, where General Clark served as president from 1954–1965.
Seraph monument
This is the only place where the Royal Navy ensign is allowed to fly in the United States.

Exciting news

2010-11-09T14:45:00.002Z

I received an invitation in my inbox this morning to a very exciting event.More information and photographs will hopefully appear over the next few days

Memorial service

2010-10-31T01:17:00.002Z

Calling all submariners, serving and retired: on Sunday 7th November, submariners old and new are invited along to form up for the Submarine Association’s annual memorial parade at the National Submarine Memorial on the Victoria Embankment London.
It is often said that Submariners cannot march, that is just plain wrong. Certainly the ceremonial training staff may have some sort of fit because we deliberately choose to have a mixed platoon; Officers, Senior Rates and Junior Rates as one. Why do we do this, the answer is simple, the submarine service is about being a team working together and on this day we are all there for the same reason, to pay honour to those who have gone before.
Attendees come from all parts of the Country with the Submarine Association Veterans and the serving Submarine Service parading together, with RASM taking the salute. Last year saw the best attendance ever from the serving community with 160 submariners from HMS Raleigh, Sultan, Neptune, Excellent, Defiance, First Submarine Squadron, Abbey Wood, HMS Vanguard, Ambush, Triumph, Sceptre, and Vengeance. The unique nature of this event, it's undoubted ability to create an esprit de corps to the submarine service over and above a "cap tally" loyalty and the range of attendees make it a special occasion for all.
Meet at the Embankment by HMS President at 10:00 on 7th November 2010.

The complex world of the submariner 'Brotherhood'

2010-10-29T10:10:00.002+01:00

These pieces come from the Western Morning News and feature the current HMS Turbulent:

I CAN'T tell you how difficult it is trying to forget the fact you're sharing your bed with a live high-explosive torpedo. Every time I open my weary eyes I see the letters 'S-P-E-A-R-F-I-S-H' and soon remember the bizarre situation I am in.
I'm spending the night in the weapons stowage compartment, referred to as the 'bomb shop', on Devonport-based nuclear submarine HMS Turbulent.
When the submarine is fully-manned this compartment is used as an overflow accommodation area.

To really experience life as a submariner, the boat's commanding officer, Commander Ryan Ramsey, invited me on board for a passage up the Channel to Portsmouth.
It's my first experience on a hunter killer submarine – and one which I'll never forget.
Trying to sleep, forgetting for one moment the live 20ft missile laying next to me, is a futile act.
Imagine placing a switched on vacuum cleaner next to your head and you'll have some idea of the constant noise generated by a vast array of blipping, blinking machines.
There is constant movement with the servicemen operating on 'six-on, six-off' shifts.
Combine the grunting, coughing and spluttering sounds from cold-stricken submariners laying nearby, with the sensation of trying to sleep in a washing machine (submarines have no keel so any ocean swell when it's surfaced is felt ten-fold) and it helps to paint the picture.
At least you can't tell what time of day it is.
There's no natural light and the lights are constantly switched on.
In fact I'm told the only way you can tell what day it is is by the food you are served at lunch or dinner.
Wednesday is 'curry night'; Saturday is 'steak night'; Sunday is 'roast' and so on.
Submariners on board tell me you simply "get used" to the conditions – you'd better because they can, and have, dived for up to 90 days without surfacing.
But my friends, who are friends of submariners, tell me these guys are just a bit "strange".
Having spent time with them I'm of mixed opinions.
They are certainly one of a kind, and a truly special kind of person.
Submarines are as cramped as you might imagine, possibly more so.
There is barely enough room to pass someone in the long narrow corridors, and only the commanding officer has his own cabin. Not being used to such an environment, I can't help but freak out every few feet.
I'm 6ft 4in and I'm not used to walking with a constant stoop.
Also there are so many valves, switches, levers and dials plastered over everything you fear leaning up against anything in case the submarine suddenly veers off.
Now I can understand why the safety brief lasts for so long.
There are so many nooks and crannies, and not a single space is left unoccupied. I'm told there are "no creature comforts" on board yet the submarine boasts a variety of facilities you wouldn't imagine to be found on a submarine.
It boasts a 'gym', (basically some weights, a mat, and a newly-installed rowing machine) crammed in between floor to ceiling units; a fully functional kitchen or 'galley' (roughly 12ft by 4ft in size) which prepares food for the crew; and a projector unit to beam movies onto walls.
There are five toilets on board and three or four showers, and there are about 115 people on board.
And it can get a bit smelly. Aerosols are also banned given the dangers with changing pressures.
I'm told the procedure for showering is a 30 second blast of water, lather, and then a 30 second blast to wash off.
Anything longer is called a "Hollywood shower" and anyone caught disregarding the rules will face consequences.
This is because water is fairly limited given that the boat creates its own water from sea water.
It is also able to replenish its own oxygen.
Smoking is a big no-no too and I'm told a huge queue of people form up as and when the submarine resurfaces from the depths.
I'm only spending about 30 hours on board – including a brief dive to 30 metres – but it's enough for me.
I'll try anything once, twice if I like it.
But for now I'll leave it to these guys. They are a band of brothers and are truly unique and a special breed of person.
And what's more, they keep our island safe so we can sleep sound at night – albeit not next to a Spearfish torpedo.

LIFE under the ocean waves on board a submarine is a hive of activity.

Each and every role undertaken by a submariner is as important as the next, which is why they are often referred to as a band of brothers: and life on board Devonport-based nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine HMS Turbulent is no different.
Sonar operators are effectively the eyes and ears of submariners.
When travelling at depth, it's impossible to gain a full picture of potential hazards lying ahead without the use of sonar, so it is imperative submarines carry expert sonar operators to track movements both on and below the sea.

Leading Seaman David Saville, 37 and from Plymstock, is a sonar controller and one of a handful of people on board who maintain round-the-clock surveillance of the boat's environment.
"When the boat dives the sonar operators act as the eyes and ears," he said.
"We can detect any noise up to 35 miles away and identify a ship by its characteristics such as the speed its propeller is moving. Anything which makes a noise – be it a fish, oil rig, warship or a fishing vessel – we can detect and identify.
"We can also determine things from radio transmissions which we monitor. All this information is used to create a picture so we can determine the threat. If necessary, we can then fire on the target."
Able Seaman Steve Dawkes, aged 25 and from Weston Mill, is a sonar operator.
"We don't advertise what we do but we're very proud of our achievements," he said. "It's an interesting job and when you're out and about people always stop to talk to you about life as a submariner."
Chef David Daniels, from St Budeaux, and his three fellow-chefs are responsible for providing four meals a day, seven days a week. On a typical 10-month deployment the crew will consume about 18,000kgs of potatoes, 2,000kgs of rice, 39,000 sausages and more than 57,000 bread rolls.
For the first three weeks of a deployment, fresh food is served; unless the submarine docks, meals for the rest of the deployment are made from frozen ingredients. Because of the nature of what a submarine does – spending months under the sea undetected – enough food is stocked to last 80 days.
Chef Daniels, 32, a former Tamarside Community College pupil, has been a submariner for eight years, and previously worked for The Herald.
"Food is good for morale so it's important to get it right," he said. "People also work out what day of the week it is by what we serve. It's strange but true."
Logistics Petty Officer Spud Murphy, from Cattedown, said: "It's different way of life being a submariner but I enjoy it. It's all about getting into a routine. It can get a bit claustrophobic, so as soon as I get home I'm out on the moors with the dogs."

WE have spent considerable time understanding and developing our own capabilities.

Now we are involved in the most complex maritime exercise 'Joint Warrior' conducted in our home waters involving many ships from many Nato nations.
We are their enemy, operating in confined waters, attempting to conduct reconnaissance and other operations, including strike.
It has been busy despite the most appalling weather (gale force 9 the other day which means the boat rolls even when deep!).

Overlaid with all that is going on around us, we have been conducting our damage control training so that we know we can still fight our submarine against challenging opposition if things go wrong.
The Control Room (the operations centre) is very busy 24 hours a day and the six hours on six hours off watchkeeping cycle pays dividends, keeping a handle on the ever changing situation.
The sonar operators continue to classify and pass contacts through to the fire control system which is managed by Tactical Systems operators (TSs).
TSs, some as young as 20, conduct mental target motion analysis to check the computer algorithms results and ensure we are able to put weapons on targets.
The mental maths that is required involves Sine/Cosine, understanding Pythagoras's theorem, and doing it quickly without calculators – they are glad they paid attention to maths in school as it's keeping us safe now.
The navigation plot ensures we have room to manoeuvre as we close land to within a mile at periscope depth to conduct photographic reconnaissance.
The Ship Control team keep the 5,200 tonne submarine on depth, with a tolerance of six inches of the ordered depth, to minimise exposure of the mast and avoid counter-detection.
The periscope watchkeepers keep looking continuously for any changes, any new contacts, warships or aircraft to ensure that we are not detected as we conduct our mission.
Leading each watch of 22 people is a Watchleader, a lieutenant with an average age of 25.
We have come up with a plan and I have provided him with guidance and direction; he now makes sure it happens. It is an amazing responsibility.
One of the officers in the 'First Watch' is Sub Lieutenant Pete Heselton.
This is his first submarine and he earned his 'Dolphins' on board HMS Turbulent.
"I have wanted to do this since I was 16," he said.
"When the captain handed me my 'Dolphins' in the tradition which goes back to World War Two, welcoming me officially into the Brotherhood, I felt incredibly honoured and proud of my achievements.
"However, as with any job, and the Royal Navy being no exception, I now had a new challenge and that was to do my job as a Junior Warfare Officer.
"One of the duties of a Warfare Officer is being the officer of the watch when the submarine is on the surface. It is an amazing moment, having responsibility for the submarine, standing on the bridge with one lookout, nothing in sight except for the dolphins surfing the wake, the sound of the waves riding up the casing and a set of binoculars.
"It's an awesome responsibility to have at 22 years old, in charge of a half-a-billion-pound nuclear-powered submarine with a crew of 130 people.
"Since being at sea we have been continuing operational training ensuring that we are ready for whatever future tasking is asked of us.
"Having only been at sea for a relatively short period of time my learning curve has been pretty much a cliff face, but this means that I have learnt a huge amount and progressed forward from when I joined back in January."
Peter is learning much from this complicated period at sea where we test ourselves to our limits. All of this is about ensuring the protection of our own forces and our nation.
Most important is that Peter is part of a new generation, the next generation of submariners, who will continue the values and traditions of the Submarine Service, taking on the real challenge of operating complex military machines anywhere in the world against any enemy.

Tribute to a naval hero

2010-08-27T18:42:00.000+01:00

5:30pm Friday 27th August 2010

By Mike Buckingham

AS standards were dipped to the strains of the Last Post sailors serving and past came together to pay tribute to Newport's greatest naval hero.
Malpas-born submarine commander John 'Tubby' Linton was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross - Britain's highest award for valour - for his vessel's daring and persistent attacks against enemy shipping in the Mediterranean.
In 1943 the Turbulent was sunk it is thought by running into a mine off the coast of Sardinia following an attack by enemy warships.
Commander Linton and his crew have no grave other than the sunken submarine the precise location of which is unknown.
The memorial plaque and flower garden at Malpas Court were designed and funded by Malpas Court Communities First the chairman of which, Mr John Cox said: "It is an honour to be able to play a part in the remembrance of this gallant submariner who was born less than half-a-mile from where we stand."
As with the sounding of Reveille the standards snapped back into the upright position Mr Doug Piddington, secretary of the Newport branch of the Royal Naval Association said: "Although nobody knows where Commander Linton and his crew lie this brings him close to the heart of Newport.
"Right opposite here is a junior school and when the youngsters see the plaque and garden they will hopefully think about a great man."
The plaque and memorial stone was unveiled by the Mayor of Newport Councillor Bill Langsford. Four members of the crew of HMS Torbay a Trafalgar class submarine and sister to the present-day HMS Turbulent were among those attending the short service conducted by the Rev. Mark Soady chaplain to the university and to ex-service bodies in the city.
Mr John Huntley of Chepstow, president of the Wales branch of the Submariners' Association represented former submarine crews throughout Wales.
Commander Linton was born in Malpas in 1905 and played rugby fo the Royal Navy before taking command of the Turbulent in August, 1941.
During the course of 19 patrols the Turbulent under his command sunk 100,000 tons of enemy shipping Commander Linton was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Order for actions preceding those for which the VC was awarded.
A quayside memorial to the sailor known affectionately as 'Tubby' was unveiled by Newport Maritime Trust 15 years ago near the Steel Wave.
Wetherspoon's public house in Cambrian Road, Newport is named after him and contains a showcase of photographs dedicated to his memory and to the Turbulent and its crew.

New Linton Memorial

2010-08-23T10:38:00.002+01:00

From the South Wales Argus:

A PLAQUE in memory of a Newport war hero will be unveiled next week.
The tribute to Commander John Wallace Linton, also know as Tubby, is located in the memorial garden at Malpas Court and will be officially unveiled by Newport mayor Bill Langsford on Wednesday.
Born at Claremont House, Malpas, on October 1905, Royal Navy Commander Linton was responsible for sinking around 100,000 tons of enemy shipping as well as destroying three trains by gun fire from 1939 to 1943.
In his last year he spent 254 days at sea in his submarine HMS Turbulent, which sank on March 12, 1943, killing its entire crew.
But the war hero’s efforts were not forgotten and he was awarded the Victoria Cross, which is the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, on May 25, 1943.
He was one the last three submariners to receive one.
Commander Linton is remembered in the city every year at a ceremony marking his death and in 2004 JD Wetherspoons gave his name to their pub on Cambrian Road in his honour.
Cllr Langsford, said: “It is particularly pleasing for me to unveil the memorial garden and plaque as it is not only in the ward I represent but also where Tubby was born.
“He has a special place among the people of Newport and the memorial at Malpas Court means that he will continue to be remembered.”

Here is some information regarding the site of the memorial:
Malpas Court is a Grade II listed building, originally designed by Thomas Wyatt of London and built in 1836-8 for the Prothero family. The house was brought back into Council care in 1998 after falling into considerable disrepair.
The Council successfully bid for a total of £2.7million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Local Regeneration Fund and retrospective ERDF to redevelop Malpas Court into a Sustainability Centre, which will be an exemplar of environmental sustainability and a model of environmental good practice. A further grant of £750,000 was obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund for enhancements to the project.

North Atlantic T-boat tales

2010-06-13T14:29:00.001+01:00

I found this dit on a page from The Submariners website:

http://www.submariners.co.uk/index.php

John Monan, Ex-Petty Officer TGM.

Pre-War Ships included: HMS Rodney, HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Wartime Submarines included: Taku, Osiris, Turbulent, Thrasher, H33, H34, Solent, Statesman.
Campaign Medals etc: 1939-1945 Star, ATLANTIC STAR with Clasp for France and Germany, AFRICA STAR with Clasp for N. Africa, BURMA STAR with Clasp for Pacific, ITALY STAR, War Medal with Mention in Dispatches and Malta Seige Medal.

On Monday 14th February 1941, HM Submarine Taku sailed quietly from Holy Loch in Scotland bound for Nova Scotia. She was under escort and commanded by Lieutenant Brown. No-one could possibly have imagined or foreseen what would happen in the days following this departure. At that time I was an LTO taking my first wartime trip on a submarine. My duties included operating Main Motors, under the GPO LTO (or POLTO as he was commonly called).

On Tuesday 25th February at 1900h our escort left us and we were on our own, so to speak. The barometer was falling steeply and the sea was calm with a light wind. We proceeded onwards diving by day and surfacing by night.

On Thursday 27th February at midnight, as I proceeded to take over the watch, the wind was blowing quite fresh from the North and the sea and swell were estimated at 24. As I passed through the Control Room I noticed one or two crosses on the chart. I learned afterwards from the other LTO, who I was relieving in the Motor Room, that the crosses were U boats just waiting for suitable weather to attack us.

At 0400h, when I was coming off the watch, the wind was force 4 from the Northwest and the sea and swell were still estimated at 24. Once again as I passed through the Control room I glanced at the chart and found that one or two more crosses had been added. At 0500h when I was just getting off to sleep, I realised that the weather had deteriorated. I discovered that the wind was force 4 from the North, the sea and swell was estimated at 63. It was almost impossible to move around the submarine. The heavy seas were breaking over the Conning Tower and flooding the Control Room. We were all certain that we were doomed. In fact, one Officer (who shall remain nameless) was heard to say, "Well boys, this is the journey's end. All is lost.

Nearly everyone agreed with him and we were sure he was right. All except the First Lieutenant who said, 'All is not lost until it is lost.' Whatever that meant. Nothing could be done except 'Heave To.' That order was given and we tried to ride out the storm. The wind by this time was force 10, sea and swell estimated at 83.

The Submarine's head fell away from the wind and when we were 'beam on' to the weather, the engines were stopped and the Conning Tower hatch shut. Manoeuvres were carried out on Main Motors to endeavour to bring the Submarine back 'head to wind.' This manoeuvre took about 15 minutes. The Conning Tower hatch was opened again and the engines started. This performance was repeated approximately three times. We could not understand why we couldn't keep the Submarine 'head on' with the engines or motors. This was attributed at the time to an initial error of bad steering, combined with very strong winds blowing the Submarine's head to Leeward each time she was thrown to the crest of a wave.

The defect was suspected but not confirmed until about 1500h when the tips of the After Hydroplanes were seen from the bridge in the vertical position. From 1500h onwards all attempts to control the Submarine were temporarily abandoned. The Conning Tower hatch was shut; the Officer and the lookouts of the watch were lashed to the periscope standards to prevent them from being washed overboard. The Submarine lay quarter to sea. A signal was sent at 2333h giving our position and requesting assistance. At this time the wind was force 10.

Almost immediately after the signal was sent the wind backed and blew mainly from the Northwest, which of course would be misleading to any rescue attempt as the drift would be difficult to calculate. The Submarine was drifting helplessly and at 0400h the wind eased to force 8, then to force 6 at 2000h, though the sea and swell remained very heavy.

The weather improved slowly over the next three days. We took advantage of this to repair the gun platform, which had been damaged by the rough weather. In its present state, the gun could not be trained. We expected at any moment an attempt from the U boats who were still around us to fire torpedoes. I suspect quite a few others shared my view that this was the end.

As I took over the watch in the Motor Room I could see into the stokers' mess and I noticed one or two stokers praying. One leading stoker (whose name I cannot recall) started quietly sing "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" and I can say now that this was the turning point for me. I had less fear after this encounter, when previously I had been petrified.

At 040Gb on 3rd March, HMS Enchantress was sighted. She had been sent to look for us. She passed on a 90-degree track at a range of about 600 yards. Gladiolus and Slavonia, two salvage vessels, joined company at 1 130h. At 1430h a rocket line was passed from windward. While endeavouring to get the wire across, Slavonia drifted down to Leeward and the hemp line parted. The wind was again freshening and the sea and swell were estimated at 57. At 1530h all attempts were abandoned for the night.

At 0703h on 4th March more attempts were made to get the tow across. These were unsuccessful and at one point it was suggested that the Taku's crew should be taken off and the Submarine scuttled.

This, however, did not suit the First Lieutenant and he said, "Okay, if they're not going to tow us back, I will sail the Submarine back," (taking advantage of the West wind). Suitable gear was prepared for sailing, such as hammocks and blankets. On 7th March a further attempt was made to tow using Taku's starboard pendant. This was successful and at 1045h we were again proceeding in tow. It was decided to enter Loch Foyle for repairs.

We arrived in Londonderry on the afternoon of Monday 10th March. Here a towing line was made for the port side and the After Hydroplanes were lashed as horizontal as possible. Taku and Slavonia then proceeded to Holy Loch, Taku securing to the depot ship Titania exactly 24 hours after leaving Londonderry and exactly 15 days after breaking down.

We had made it because of the magnificent work of Enchantress, Gladioli and Slavonia, but above all to the tenacity, zeal and determination of our First Lieutenant who refused to admit defeat.

Taku was refitted at Ardrossan in time to take part in the 'Iron Ring' around Brest, where two German pocket battleships were holed up and expected to sail. After this Taku was sent directly to Gibraltar and Lieutenant Commander Nickelay took command from Lieutenant Brown.

We then spent some time in the Mediterranean doing patrols etc, and although we had some hair-raising escapades, nothing stands out in my mind like the breakdown in the Atlantic. The Mediterranean exploits are a different story. I had many rough times in the Mediterranean and the Far East, but when the going was tough and the depth charges shattering, my mind went back to the Taku days and the leading stoker singing quietly: "When I survey the Wondrous Cross, On which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride."

With those words ringing in my ears, things did not seem so bad after all.

House keeping

2010-05-31T19:51:00.002+01:00

I thought it was time to give the blog a fresh look and I hope you like it.I am sorry for the lack of posts but I have not neglected my subject as I am still fact finding and I hope that I will be able to post some interesting topics for you all this year

The Victoria Cross award

2010-05-25T21:10:00.001+01:00

Today is the 67th anniversary of the award of Linton's VC

The King has been Graciously pleased to approve of the grant of the Victoria Cross for great valour in command of HM Submarines to Commander John Wallace Linton, DSO, DSC, Royal Navy.

From the outbreak of war until HMS Turbulents last patrol Commander Linton was constantly in command of submarines, and during that time inflicted great damage on the enemy. He sank one cruiser, one destroyer, one U-boat, twenty-eight supply ships, some 10000 tons in all, and destroyed three trains by gunfire. In his last year he spent two hundred and fifty four days at sea, submerged for nearly half the time, and his ship was hunted thirteen times and had two hundred and fifty depth-charges aimed at her. His many and brilliant successes were due to his constant activity and skill, and the daring which never failed him when there was an enemy to be attacked. On one occasion, for instance, in HMS Turbulent he sighted a convoy of two merchantmen and two Destroyers in mist and moonlight. He worked round ahead of the convoy and dived to attack it as it passed through the moon's rays. On bringing his sights to bear he found himself right ahead of a destroyer. Yet he held his course 'till the destroyer was almost on top of him, and, when his sights came on the convoy, he fired. His great courage and determination were rewarded. He sank one merchantman and one destroyer outright, and set the other Merchantmen on fire so that she blew up.

Looking for a book

2010-02-20T18:58:00.004Z

In 1999 John Winton produced a book entitled "The Submariners-Life in British submarines 1901-99.It comprises a selection of personal accounts covering the first hundred years of the Royal Navy Submarine Service.
My favourite chapter in the book is a tale of a submarine and her encounter with horse cavalry.
The commanding fficer of the submarine was Captain Mervyn Wingfield,and the piece was part of his memoirs. If anybody has a copy of these memoirs would they please contact me.
I reproduce his obituary below:

Captain Mervyn Wingfield Submariner who was on active service for the entire war and brought 25 U-boats back from Norway

MERVYN ROBERT GEORGE WINGFIELD was awarded the DSO and two DSCs commanding submarines in all the Royal Navy’s main operational areas of the Second World War. He was continuously at sea from the outbreak of war until 1945, in an occupation that suffered 38 per cent casualties — a proportion exceeded only by Bomber Command.

It was the nine-year-old’s visit to the battleship Queen Elizabeth in Dublin Bay in 1920, and the delicious cakes and tea in the wardroom, that decided his future. His extensive memoirs record a rather sad childhood. An elder brother was killed in the Mesopotamia campaign. As the youngest of the family he was often being put upon and seeing himself as failing in most pursuits — including entry to Dartmouth naval college. However, his father engineered a naval reservist cadetship at Pangbourne Nautical College. From there he was able to squeak into Dartmouth in January 1925.

Wingfield's first sea duty was as a midshipman in the coal-fired battleship Benbow. Although he describes the culture as “institutional bullying”, this tour and one in the battleship Warspite in the Mediterranean were intensely enjoyable. But, seeking adventure rather than big-ship routine, he volunteered for submarines and early in 1934 arrived in Hong Kong as the fourth officer of the submarine Odin.

With a year’s break at home as second-in-command of the submarine H50, during which time he got married, he was to serve in Odin for six years in the Far East, being appointed second-in-command on return. In this heyday of British influence, Odin enjoyably toured half the globe until on September 3, 1939, the Admiralty telegram “Total Germany” was received, announcing the commencement of hostilities. After patrols in the Indian Ocean against commerce raiders, Odin was dispatched to the famous “Fighting Tenth” submarine squadron based at Malta, arriving in June 1940. Wingfield was selected for the commanding officer’s “perisher ” course, and travelled back to England by train through a collapsing France under the protection of the highly organized Scots Guards whose motto, “Any bloody fool can be uncomfortable”, certainly obtained.

Odin, surprised on the surface at night by Italian destroyers, did not return from her first patrol. Wingfield’s first command was the obsolescent H43 which, although designated a training submarine, undertook operational North Sea patrols. In early 1941 he was appointed captain of the newly built Umpire. On July 19, 1941, Umpire was sunk in collision with an armed trawler off Great Yarmouth with the loss of two officers and 14 men, Wingfield recalling that he was on the bridge at the time and that his life was saved by the large kapok-filled coat given to him by his wife. About half the crew escaped from the bottomed submarine using the Davis escape apparatus, including the second-in-command, the celebrated submariner, Lieutenant (later Commander, DSO, DSC and Bar) Edward Young, RNVR.

Exonerated from blame, Wingfield was given command of the Sturgeon and was based at Polyarnoe near Murmansk, where he conducted several patrols off the Norwegian coast, guarding convoys to Russia, including the ill-fated PQ17, against German warships. Targets were few, but Sturgeon was able to sink supply ships, on one occasion passing through a minefield: “The scraping of the mooring wires along our hull concentrated our minds a bit.” In the spring of 1942 Sturgeon was employed as the navigational beacon for the intrepid raid on St Nazaire, when the destroyer Campbeltown was used to blow up the lock gates.

He was awarded the DSO in November 1942. After commissioning and work-up, Wingfield took the new submarine Taurus to Algiers, arriving in February 1943. An early success was the sinking of the Spanish merchant ship Barolo which, because it was a neutral, caused some anxiety. However, the British Ambassador to Spain signaled: “Since your sinking, all trade to Occupied France has ceased. Well Done.” Other sinkings were followed by a move to Beirut and participation in the interdiction of coastal traffic, involving many attacks on caiques — “picturesque vessels used for shipping stores to the enemy garrisons on the different islands, and were legitimate targets, but it was disagreeable work”.

On one occasion Taurus entered the port of Neo Playa near the Bulgarian border and while engaged in sinking minor shipping by gunfire, was attacked by a Bulgarian cavalry regiment using machineguns, probably the only occasion in history between such disparate opponents. Other employments included the landing of clandestine forces on Rhodes in aid of the mistaken Aegean campaign. Wingfield was awarded the DSC “for the sinking of much valuable enemy shipping and the carrying out of four bombardments”. After the collapse of Italy and a stabilized situation in the Mediterranean, Taurus, with other submarines, was sent to the Indian Ocean to reinforce the Eastern Fleet where things were at a low ebb. After a period of ill-luck and missed targets which threatened Wingfield’s tenure in command, he sank the Japanese submarine I34 bound for Penang and later had a dramatic gun battle with a submarine chaser, disabling her. He was awarded a Bar to his DSC for these actions, being the only CO to be decorated in this theatre during the latter months of 1943, when submarines were the first units of the Eastern Fleet to take the offensive. In January 1944 Taurus landed a large clandestine team on the Andaman islands and sank several small vessels by gunfire, also laying, in a minefield off Penang, a new type of half-ton mine which had some successes. Targets were becoming fewer in late 1944, and after a couple of patrols during which Wingfield “sank some small stuff around Sumatra” and was awarded a mention in dispatches, Taurus was ordered home for refit, arriving “ battered but intact”.

The end of the war in Europe was followed by the surrender of the German U-boat force, and Wingfield was placed in charge of the 25 based in Norway. He chose to command one of the new and formidable Type XXI boats on the voyage back to Scapa Flow, reckoning that the Allies had won the antisubmarine war just in time. A tour in the operations division of the Admiralty was followed by promotion to commander, and appointment to the cruiser Euryalus as second-in-command. An interesting and amusing Mediterranean commission was followed by appointment to the British naval staff in Washington, as ADC to the French admiral who was deputy NATO supreme commander in Brussels, and finally a staff job with the American navy in Norfolk, Virginia.

His appointments as a captain included command of the reserve fleet in the Clyde and naval attaché at Athens and Tel Aviv. Finally, he commanded the naval air station at Abbotsinch in Scotland, retiring from the Navy in 1962. His second career was in business. He worked in a charitable organization and was chairman of an oil supply company until it folded. Chairmanship of an insurance agency which had to go into liquidation due to embezzlement by the managing director damaged his personal finances. Nine years as marine manager, United Dominions Trust, came to an end when mortgage relief was removed from yacht purchases. He put his ship master’s certificate to good use, working as second mate in several merchant vessels, finally hanging up his seaboots in 1976.

He is survived by his wife Sheila, and by their two sons and a daughter. Captain Mervyn Robert George Wingfield, DSO, DSC and Bar, submariner, was born on January 16, 1911. He died on March 15, 2005, aged 94.

Past and Present Danger

2010-02-16T08:54:00.001Z

Looking back on the submarine's reign to date, Commander Jeff Tall urges the present generation of commanding officers to learn from the lessons of history when fighting modern day threats.

In his book 'Crash Dive', Arthur Dickison, a telegraphist on HMS Safari in WWII operating in the Mediterranean, tells of an interaction he had one day with his Captain, Lieutenant Commander (later Rear Admiral) Ben Bryant DSO**DSC RN. Ben Bryant was the archetypical wartime Commanding Officer – a stickler for detail, ruthless in the pursuit of perfection and the enemy, and a master of his profession. Dickison had just finished polishing the brass ring of the compass on the bridge of the submarine and stood back to admire his handiwork when he received a cuff around the ear from his Captain who was doing his pre-sailing rounds. Astonished, Dickison turned to face his furious assailant wondering what he had done wrong. "You have just created a reflection glint for an aircraft, young man. Cover it up!" In other words, there were enough problems already facing the submarine and her crew without adding to those challenges through slip-ups!

Such were the margins of life and death in war (47 of 94 RN submarines that operated in the Mediterranean were lost through a variety of causes). That interaction also highlights the fine line between success and failure in a nuclear powered submarine, the most complex machine built by man, where a glint from a compass ring can be translated thousands of times into potential poo-traps; a pressurised water reactor (PWR) producing enough power to keep a town the size of Norwich illuminated for decades; a steam system capable of driving a 16,000 ton submarine through the water at just below the urban speed limit; hundreds of valves connected to a myriad of steam, sea-water, hydraulics and air systems at pressures up to 4,000psi; dozens of pumps of all sizes constantly shifting water and oil around the submarine to feed cooling systems and control surfaces; a welter of electrical machinery turning out wiggly and straight amps to power the raison d'être of the submarine as a fighting machine – namely its vertical and horizontal weapons and sensors, as well as providing reactor protection, plus the hotel load that keeps the crew alive.

So what are the threats?
There is no such thing as a small fire in a submarine – it is a big fire waiting to conflagrate. It is a phenomenon that damages your fighting equipment, devours your oxygen and leaves you with poisonous residual gases, and is particularly nasty if it breaks out while you are under the icecap. Submarines operating in this challenging area always know where the nearest polyna is. The worst occurred in HMS Warspite in 1976 when alongside in Liverpool, when a broken coupling sprayed fuel around the diesel-engine compartment and created an inferno. Thankfully there were no casualties, although the record shows that in a dozen fires that have occurred in Soviet submarines lives were lost. In addition, on two occasions fire directly led to total loss of the submarine at sea. In 1970, K-8 – a November class SSN – suffered a fire that eventually sank her. The Komsomolets, the only Soviet titanium hull Mike-class SSN, sank in 1989 off Bear Island as a result of a fire that broke out in the aft compartment and was fed by the sheared high pressure air system. Two-thirds of the crew perished in the fire and the subsequent evacuation in freezing water.

Weapon accidents, though not commonplace, tend to be catastrophic. In 1968 in the vicinity of the Azores, USS Scorpion suffered an internal explosion of one of its own torpedoes in a tube, causing a rupture of the hull; in 1986, while on patrol 680 miles northeast of Bermuda the Yankee-class SSBN K-219 suffered an explosion and fire in a missile tube. The seal in a missile hatch cover failed, allowing seawater to leak into the missile tube and react with residue from the missile's liquid fuel. The downstream damage caused the submarine to flood and eventually sink; in 2000 the Russian submarine Kursk suffered an explosion of a high test peroxide fuelled torpedo whilst it was being loaded into a tube (similar to the fate suffered by HMS Sidon in Portland Harbour in 1955). The subsequent fire caused other weapons to detonate, blowing the whole front end off the submarine.

For generations of submariners, flooding has generated more 'character building' experiences (a euphemism for heart stopping moments) than any other potential disaster. Because sea-pressure increases by 1psi for every two feet in depth, a leak from even a small bore pipe when at depth comes out like a stair rod, and is capable of cutting a man in half. A 'good read' before going on patrol was the Ship's Book, which showed in graphical form the relationship between depth, the size of hole, and the amount of water that would pour in, in a given amount of time. This was a sober reminder of how important it was for your team to react quickly to speed up and head for the surface in the event of a flood, emptying the ballast tanks through the emergency blow system as you came shallow.

High speed was of the essence to drive you out of danger; it was a loss of propulsion combined with a serious flood that led to the loss of USS Thresher during deep diving trials in 1963. When she was at test depth (in excess of 600 feet), a six-inch pipe sheared in a machinery space spraying water over reactor protection circuitry as well as flooding the compartment. This caused the reactor to scram, denying the submarine sufficient propulsive power to reduce the pressure of the flood and overcome the increasing weight of floodwater. What made matters worse was that the emergency blowing system appeared to freeze up, which prevented the ballast tanks from being emptied. The submarine sank stern first below her crushing depth. It was after this disaster that the USN introduced its Subsafe quality assurance programme on all systems exposed to sea pressure or critical to flooding recovery.

High speed, whilst one of the greatest strengths of the SSN, can also be its Achilles heel. Submariners have always relied on 'widgets', interactive handheld bits of plastic that imparted a wealth of information with the simple movement of a sliding bar. Target ranges, torpedo spreads, firing intervals, and even advice on when to fire a Sub-Harpoon anti-ship missile through a widget appropriately called SPLAT (Sub-Harpoon Launch Assessment Template) were always within arm's reach. By far the most important of these aids was the Operating Envelope Template. This template portrayed the inter-relationship of depth, speed, and hydroplane/rudder angles, and defined the limits of these parameters, the exceeding of which in the event of an after plane failure/jam would result in the submarine breaching its maximum diving depth (going down) or its safe depth (going up), plus the minimum speed required to recover from a flooding accident from any given depth. An after plane jam was one of the greatest fears for many – in the worst case scenario, seconds meant the difference between survival and disaster.

This was demonstrated graphically by HMS Valiant in the 1970s. The submarine was in transit steaming in excess of 20 knots, with 'George' (the automatic pilot) controlling the hydroplanes. The Drayton Display, a predictive sensor used by the after-planesman to keep the submarine at the correct depth, was defective so it was decided to fix it in situ. The maintainer undid the four retaining screws just as 'George' put a gentle bow-up angle on the submarine. The body of the display shot out and snap-locked at its maximum extent, forcing the after planes to full rise and pinning the operating joystick to the after-planesman's chest so that he could not reach the air emergency lever that would have bypassed the hydraulic feed to the planes. The submarine almost instantaneously took on a 40-degree bow up angle, scattering operators everywhere. In the Manoeuvring Room, well aft in the submarine, the effects were pronounced, with the Engineer Officer of the Watch leaving an imprint of his steaming boot on the deckhead (ceiling)! The submarine left the water at high speed at 40 degrees up, conducted a graceful arc, and re-entered the water, still propelling, at 40 degrees down. One man managed to hang on in the mayhem – the Propulsion Panel Operator. He had the strength to keep a grip on the throttles, and the presence of mind to put the engines to full astern as she thundered into the deep. The submarine stopped at 700 feet, still nose down, but was soon back under control. The whole event took less than two minutes. Whilst the incident was generated by a 'glint', it also demonstrated the remarkable strength and ruggedness of British submarines.

It is that inherent strength and excellence of western, and latterly eastern, design that has reduced many catastrophes to 'incidents', particularly in collisions. Submarining in the Cold War, the ultimate scenario in which submarines chased each other for a variety of operational reasons, was described as 'playing blind man's buff in 3D'. In a passive sonar environment, there were ranging sensors and mechanisms to keep submarines apart, but those could not be relied upon entirely, particularly against very quiet targets. Add to this the uncertainty of opposition submarine depth, and it was inevitable that 'incidents' occurred. Submariners, their bosses, and politicians alike were aware of the risks, and history has shown that they were worth taking.

Today, the submarine continues to be a most potent platform in deterrent and 'control of the sea' terms, so 'incidents' will continue. But, with the world watching, and predators dying to turn submarines into razor blades, the present generation of submarine commanding officers must take a leaf out of Ben Bryant's book, and cut out the 'glints'.

During the Cold War, Commander Jeff Tall OBE RN commanded HMS Churchill (SSN) and HMS Repulse (SSBN), as well as the SSKs HMS Olympus and Finwhale. After retiring from the Royal Navy in 1994, he was Director of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum for 14 years.

Escape by Submarine from Crete

2010-01-08T15:49:00.006Z

At 2220 hrs Saturday 26^th July 1941, submarine H.M.S. THRASHER had surfaced off the south coast of Crete in the vicinity of Limni Bay (Preveli) when a light was spotted on the hillside flashing the signal “ S.O.S. Please send help”. The message was repeated throughout the night.

Several hours later, at 0245 hrs Sunday 27^th, Lieutenant Commander ( Skipper) Pool R.N.R and a Greek guide were landed to make arrangements to contact the signallers and arrange for the escape of a number of allied troops.

At 0050 hrs, Monday 28^th July 1941 H.M.S. THRASHER touched bottom just 75 yards from the beach at Limni Bay and began embarking the escapees. Lieutenant G.S. Clarabut R.N. and two commandos were responsible for ensuring that no lives were lost in the transfer.

H.M.S. THRASHER arrived in Alexandria on 31^st July with her 78 assorted survivors without further incident.

Commander Pool remained in Crete arranging for the evacuation of further allied troops. When he finally left the island on 20^th August he took a further 130 escapers on the second submarine H.M.S. TORBAY, establishing a record for the greatest number of people jammed in a submarine in the process.

Commander Pool was assisted in his preparations for the evacuations by Abbot Lagouvardos, later (Lt Lagouvardos O.B.E), the Abbot of Preveli Monastery. The monastery was raided by occupying forces on 25^th August but not before Abbot Lagouvardos had made a successful escape. He subsequently left Crete on 18th December with Major Jack Smith-Hughes by caique for Egypt.

The official record of H.M.S. Thrasher's Second War Patrol lists the following personnel as those evacuated on the 28^th July. Geoff Edwards and his mate Bill McGarry are listed amongst those rescued.

D.MX 52937

D/KX 78309

C/SSX 26471

P/SSX 17943

D/JX 184876

2977189

3308413

2979601

22038776

2982183

4756618

2982258

4269522

2337613

2337800

2342404

2581329

7743 62

2578578

6915451

6898896

7263175

1945496

3959776

7667270

3774

3294

20728

WX 32

WX 17

WX 334

W X 274

WX976

VX 15675

WX 908

NX 8752

NX 4248

WX 606

VX 7177

WX 891

VX 8876

NX 7160

WX 370

VX 5699

WX 1103

WX 1055

WX 930

WX 1105

WX 1133

WX 2274

WX 1704

NX 3242

WX 412

WX 350

QX 3071

WX 752

WX 1938

Wx 426

Wx 2088

VX 11830

WX 6142

WX 1707

NX 19849

WX 6112

WX 863

QX 3912

NX 1590

R Clough

J J A Gibson

A J Taylor

J E C Middleton

D F Pearce

J Touner

R Brown

D Christie

J Bale

J Buckley

J V Carr

J McClelland

T W Summers

R Decker

L Fletcher

C Jenkinson

C F Senier

F B Shaw

E M Thomas

A Crow

G Sinclair

G F Webb

W E Roberts

P R Young

R T Weston

F Davis

S Onyen

J Ried

D A C Jackson

P M Shanahan

C W Bayly

L R Dowling

G L Greenway

I McKerrow

G P Wilde

W Ryan

J Cauley

D B Stirling

J H Taylor

W Latham

D L Miller

R Munro

R J Baird

H Cathery

W H Carter

E Cook

J H Duncan

E G Edwards

A Forrest

A E Hackshaw

J Haddock

W Jewell

W McCarrey

A McEwan

W J Melksham

S N Morrison

C L Nicholson

J P O’Neil

A Rigby

J McB Robert-Shaw

N Sinclair

L W Smith

V Solomon

B F Thomas

L F Williams

H J Woods

K Yoole

E.R.A.

L.Sto.

A.B.

L.Sea

O.D.

Sgt

L. Cpl

“-”

Pte

“-”

L. Cpl

Sig

“-”

Rfm

“-”

Gnr

Pte

“-”

Cpl

Sgt

Cpl

Gnr

Captain

“-”

Lieut.

“-”

W.O II

Sgt

“-”

Cpl

“-”

Cpl

Pte

“-”

“-”

“-”

R.N. H.M.S.Widnes

R.N. H.M.S. Glenroy

“-”

I Bn A & SH

“-”

R.C. of Sigs

“-”

K.R.R.

“-”

R.A. 189 F.A.

R.E.

Welch Regt.

R.A.P.C.

18 Bn. N.Z.E.F.

“-”

5 Fd.Rgt. co.

2/11 Bn A.E.F.

“-”

I.M.G. A.E.F

2/11 Bn A.E.F.

2/1/Bn A.E.F.

2/5 Bn A.E.F.

2/11 Bn A.E.F.

I.M.G. Bn A.E.F.

2/11/ Bn A.E.F.

I.M.G. Bn A. E. F.

2/2 Bn A.E.F.

2/11/ Bn A.E.F.

I.M.G. Bn A.E.F.

2/11 Bn A.E.F.

“-”

“-”

“-”

2/2/ Bn A.E.F.

2/11/ Bn A.E.F.

“-”

16 Bde. HQ A.E.F.

2/11/ Bn A.E.F.

“-”

A I E

I M G Bn A I E

2/11 Bn A I E

19 Bde HQ A.I.E

2/2 Bn A I.E.

2/11 Bn A.I.E.

“-”

16 Bde HQ

2/2/ Bn A.I.E.

The following Greeks were also evacuated.

Apostolakis, George

Haritakis, George

Hnarogiannakis, Georges

Mastrogiannakis, Michael

Michalakakis, Evangelos

Michalakakis, Theodoros

Stavrolidakis, George

Marinos, Themistocles

Kyriakakis, Konstantinos

Kalogerakis, Haralampos

Demetrakakis, Emmanuel

First photograph of a submarine Jolly Roger

2010-01-08T15:30:00.002Z

H5 under the command of Cromwell H. Varley, RN, has just returned from her patrol in the Bight where she torpedoed the U-boat U51 (14 July 1916). Although this is not the first time a British submarine flew the Jolly Roger to celebrate her victory, it is the first known photograph of one. (Photo and the caption courtesy of the late J. D. Perkins )

A very unusual character -part two

2010-01-07T17:33:00.008Z

Here is Miers entry from the unithistories website:

1924 special entry cadet RN
29.04.1929-(08.1929)submarine course, Portsmouth
12.08.1929-(02.1931)HMS M 2 (submarine)
25.04.1931-01.1932)First Lieutenant, HMS H 28 (submarine)
(09.1932)no appointment listed
19.10.1933(07.1935)First Lieutenant, HMS Rainbow (submarine)
(02.1936)no appointment listed
08.09.1936(07.)1937Commanding Officer, HMS L 54 (submarine) (Coronation medal at HM's review in 1937)
1937-1938HMS Iron Duke (training ship)
11.01.1938-(10.1938)staff course, RN Staff College, Greenwich (psc)
02.01.1939-1940Staff Officer (Operations 2) to Commander-in- Chief Home Fleet [HMS Nelson (battleship) till 01.01.1940, HMS Rodney (battleship) till (04.1940), and HMS Warspite (battleship)]
1940-1940HMS Largs
12.11.1940-08.)1942Commanding Officer, HMS Torbay (submarine)
19.11.1942-05.1944HMS Saker (RN base, USA)
1943-1944Staff of Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief US Pacific Fleet
21.05.1944-(07.)1945Commander Submarines 8th Submarine Flotilla [HMS Maidstone (submarine depot ship)]
(04.1946)no appointment listed
1946 Commanding Officer, HMS Vernon II (HMS Ramillies and HMS Malaya)
1947jssc
1948-1950Commanding Officer, HMS Blackcap (RN Air Station, Stretton)
(05.1950)no appointment listed
1950-1952Commanding Officer, HMS Forth and Capt. S/M, 1st Submarine Flotilla
25.06.1952-1954Captain of RN College, Greenwich (Coronation medal, 1953)
1954-1955Commanding Officer, HMS Theseus
(01.1956)no appointment listed
1956-1959Flag Officer, Middle East

His VC citation:

Lieutenant Commander Anthony Cecil Chapel Miers
Lieutenant Commander Anthony Cecil Chapel Miers DSO Royal Navy Whilst on patrol in HM Submarine Torbay off the Greek coast on the 4th March 1942.

Lieutenant Commander Miers sighted a northbound convoy of four troopships entering the South Corfu Channel and since they had been too far distant for him to attack initially, he decided to follow in the hope of catching them in Corfu Harbour. During the night 4/5 March, Torbay approached undetected up the channel and remained on the surface charging her battery. Unfortunately the convoy passed straight through the channel but on the morning of the 5th March, in glassy sea conditions, Miers successfully attacked two store ships present in the roadstead and then brought Torbay safely back to the open sea. The submarine endured 40 depth charges and had been in closely patrolled enemy waters for seventeen hours.VC

Gazetted 7 July 1942.

A very unusual character

2010-01-07T16:51:00.004Z

I have been stuck at home for a number of days now due to the very cold and wintry weather we are currently experiencing in the United Kingdom. I did manage to get to my local shop this morning to buy some provisions and whilst I was there I bought one of my favourite magazines-Britain at War http://www.britain-at-war-magazine.com/.
In the back pages of the magazine was a review for a book entitled "Gamp VC". The book's title referred to the nickname of Sir Anthony Miers VC,another of the World War Two submariner winners of the Victoria Cross. MIers was a controversial character as the following pieces will show.

During the Second World War, the Royal Navy submarine commander

Sir Anthony Miers was known as the Nazi's Public Enemy Number One. But was he also guilty of war crimes? A new biography by BRIAN IZZARD tells his story and defends him against these claims

WHEN Anthony Miers was a pupil at Wellington College, the school for "the sons of heroes", a tutor predicted that he would either be courtmartialled or win the Victoria Cross. Anthony Miers achieved both. For most of his life he was a "ball of fire", one of the Royal Navy's most colourful and controversial officers. The short, stocky man with a penetrating glare was seen as "totally loyal, outstandingly keen, fearless, hot-tempered and incautiously spoken". His language was paint-blistering.

Miers hated losing, whether it was on the playing field or at sea hunting down the enemy. During the Second World War he carried out brilliant patrols as commander of the submarine HMS Torbay. In addition to winning the VC, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Bar. He rose to the rank of rear admiral and was knighted. And after his death the broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy alleged that he had been a war criminal. Kennedy, who died in October, created a controversy that continues to arouse passionate feelings.

Anthony Miers was seven years old when his father Douglas, a captain in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, was killed in action in France fewer than six weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. Two of his uncles also died serving as army officers - one was murdered by Boers in 1901 during the war in South Africa and the other was fatally wounded in 1917 before the Third Battle of Ypres. The young Anthony quickly developed a remarkable mental toughness thanks partly to his formidable mother, who lost three children.

At Wellington College he developed a passion for sport, especially rugby. One naval officer would say of him: "He never became a good loser. He was fiercely competitive and determined, from his youngest years, to win - whatever and however."

Miers joined the navy in 1925 as a special-entry cadet, aged 19. Three years later he entered the submarine service.

As he rose in rank, men would dread his volcanic eruptions, which for those on the receiving end might culminate in a black eye, close arrest or the sack. For someone really unlucky it was all three.

But when the fire-eater cooled down he could be charm personified. Miers did not bear grudges; a man put under close arrest at lunchtime would probably find himself free by teatime as if nothing had happened. And no one who came into contact with his fists ever made a formal complaint. When he was in command Miers was fiercely loyal to his crew.

It was in 1933 that he fulfilled one of his tutor's prophecies. He was courtmartialled for attempting to strike a stoker. The incident came to light only because Miers reported himself to his commanding officer. He may have been involved in an argument with the rating over a football match but at the hearing neither man offered an explanation.

Miers was dismissed from his ship and a few months later he was sent to Hong Kong as first lieutenant of the submarine HMS Rainbow. Here he acquired the lower-deck nickname Gamp - after the Charles Dickens character Mrs Gamp who carried a bulky umbrella. Gamp became a common expression for umbrella. Miers would often appear in the conning tower of Rainbow with an umbrella to ward off tropical storms.

That famous temper helped him to win the Victoria Cross in March 1942. He had already carried out nine successful patrols in HMS Torbay in the Mediterranean theatre, earning the plaudit "Nazi Public Enemy Number One".

Two merchant ships were spotted near the Greek island of Paxos and he gave chase, eventually losing them in darkness. Miers set course for the Corfu Channel and soon saw a "magnificent" convoy of four large troopships, along with three destroyers and two aircraft.

But the targets were 11,000 yards away.

MIERS was angry. If he had not chased the other ships he would have been in an excellent position to attack the convoy. He gambled that the ships would anchor off Corfu harbour to pick up fuel. Torbay entered the enemy-held Corfu Channel, 30 miles long, with the island on one side and parts of the Greek and Albanian mainland on the other.

The submarine went to a spot opposite the harbour and remained for a time on the moonlit surface charging her batteries. One sailor said later: "Small enemy boats passed to and fro, bringing back Nazi troops from the night's shore leave.

We saw people quite clearly silhouetted in the glare of car headlamps and pushbike lights. We watched ships unloading, and heard enemy voices shouting. How the devil they never saw 260 feet of submarine lying around is a miracle."

Torbay was forced to dive to avoid a patrol vessel. At dawn she moved in to attack but was forced to turn away because of another vessel. Then the periscope showed two large supply ships, "perfect targets", at anchor. Torpedoes struck both of them. Torbay went deep, turned and headed for the southern entrance of the channel.

Search boats were joined by a destroyer and a plane and 40 depth charges were dropped. A large schooner acting as a boom defence vessel tried to block the southern entrance but Torbay escaped - after 17 hours in enemy waters.

It was hailed as one of the most remarkable submarine patrols carried out during the war.

One day in 1985 the telephone rang at the London home of Rear Admiral Sir Anthony Miers. His wife answered and the voice at the other end said: "This is Ludovic Kennedy and I wish to talk to Admiral Miers about an incident in the Aegean."

Lady Miers said she would ask him.

The admiral, seriously ill, was sitting in the dining room. He said he could not speak to anyone. Lady Miers went back to the phone and said: "Tony cannot speak to you - he is very ill with liver cancer and he is dying."

Kennedy replied: "All right, then I can write what I like." So she hung up.

As he rose in rank, men would dread his volcanic eruptions, which for those on the receiving end might culminate in a black eye, close arrest or the sack. For someone really unlucky it was all three.

But the targets were 11,000 yards away.

It was hailed as one of the most remarkable submarine patrols carried out during the war.

Lady Miers said she would ask him.

Kennedy replied: "All right, then I can write what I like." So she hung up.

THE admiral died that June, removing any threat of a libel action. In 1989 Kennedy published his autobiography, in which he devoted several pages to "a submarine atrocity". On the night of July 9, 1941, Miers had attacked several sailing ships carrying German troops and supplies off Crete. The submarine rose to the surface and opened fire with her four-inch gun. One of the boats surrendered but as the submarine drew alongside a German tried to hurl a grenade and another soldier aimed a rifle. Both men were shot. Shortly afterwards a group of soldiers in a dinghy tried to flee back to Crete and Miers gave an order to open fire with a machine gun.

Kennedy claimed the men were shot but their fate is unclear. The soldiers, from a crack alpine regiment, were never prisoners.

The broadcaster also made other questionable claims, and compared Miers with a German U-boat commander who had been executed after the war for murdering merchant seamen. He did not name Miers but a newspaper quickly identified him in a front-page story headlined "Was Royal Navy VC submariner a war criminal?"

Paul Chapman, who had been Torbay's first lieutenant, accused Kennedy of staging a publicity stunt.
The above is taken from the publishers material associated with the book.
To be continued.

Captain Geoffrey Mainwaring Sladen,DSO,DSC

2009-12-14T14:41:00.009Z

My previous story of a Reindeer travelling by submarine led me to dig into the history of the Commanding Officer of HMS Trident Commander Sladen.

Here is a short version of the life of Geoffrey Mainwaring Sladen.Sources are Unithistories and Uboat.net

Education: RN Colleges, Osborne & Dartmouth
15.09.1922-(01.1925)
HMS Hawkins (cruiser) (China)

14.02.1927-(07.1927)
HMS L 14 (submarine) (for duty with "M" submarines in reserve at Portland)

(08.1929) no appointment listed

10.08.1929-(04.1930)
First Lieutenant, HMS H 27 (submarine) (Portsmouth)

15.04.1930-(02.1931)
HMS Rodney (battleship) (Atlantic Fleet)

08.09.1931-(09.1932)
First Lieutenant, HMS L 54 (submarine) (Portsmouth)

01.12.1933-(01.1934)
HMS Titania (submarine depot ship) (for submarines)

23.03.1935-(02.1937)
staff, RN College, Dartmouth [HMS Britannia]

09.07.1937-(10.1938)
Commanding Officer, HMS Shark (submarine)

21.01.1939-(08.1939)
Commanding Officer, HMS Thames (submarine) (Portsmouth)

(04.1940)

HMS Oswald (submarine) *
18.04.1940-(03.1942)
Commanding Officer, HMS Trident (submarine)

22.03.1942-(06.1942)
HMS Dolphin (submarine depot) (for submarines)

12.06.1942-(02.1943)
Commanding Officer, HMS Titania (submarine depot ship)

30.03.1943-(12.1943)
Executive Officer, HMS Sheffield (cruiser)

(04.1944)-(06.1944)
no appointment listed

20.02.1945-(07.1945)
Commanding Officer, HMS Musketeer (destroyer)

(1945?)

HMS Matchless (destroyer)

27.08.1945-(04.1946)
Executive Officer, 5th Submarine Flotilla [HMS Dolphin (submarine depot)] (for Fort Blockhouse)

28.10.1947-(07.1948)
Commanding Officer, & Flag Captain, HMS Forth (submarine depot ship)

(05.1950)

HMS President *

(05.1953)

no appointment listed

* indexed, but not listed as such
Played rugby for England (1929).

Geoffrey Sladen developed the rubber suit used by British frogmen who rode the human torpedoes (Chariots) in WW2.Early in 1942, submariner Commanders Geoffrey Mainwaring Sladen (of Sladen 'Clammy Death' diving suit fame) and William Richard Fell commenced training with Chariot two-man human torpedoes at Horsea. Initially, a wooden mock-up Chariot nicknamed 'Cassidy' was towed up and down the lake by a small motor boat. In May 1942, Lt P C A Browning RNVR was the first Chariot casualty when he failed to surface after a routine dive. Chariot training was moved to Scotland a couple of months later.

Events related to this officer

Submarine HMS Trident (N 52)

25 Apr 1940
HMS Trident (Lt.Cdr. G.M. Sladen, RN) fires two torpedoes against the German merchants Palime (2863 GRT) and Pelikan (3464 GRT) about 30 nautical miles south-west of Lindesnes, Norway in position 57º30'N, 06º10'E. Both torpedoes missed their targets.
2 May 1940
HMS Trident (Lt.Cdr. G.M. Sladen, RN) attacks and damages the German merchant Cläre Hugo Stinnes (5295 GRT) with torpedoes and gunfire off the Björn fjord, Norway.
23 Jun 1940
HMS Trident (Lt.Cdr. G.M. Sladen, RN) fires four torpedoes at the German oiler Dithmarschen (10816 GRT) north of Frohavet in position 64º21'N, 09º12'E. The torpedoes however miss their target.
8 Oct 1940
HMS Trident (Lt.Cdr. G.M. Sladen, RN) attacks the German submarine U-31 with torpedoes in the Bay of Biscay about 15 nautical miles south of Lorient, France in position 47º28'N, 03º25'W. All torpedoes fired missed their target.
27 Dec 1940
HMS Trident (Lt.Cdr. G.M. Sladen, DSC, RN) fires five torpedoes against a darkened ship that entered Punta Delgada, Azores. All five torpedoes missed their target.
19 Aug 1941
HMS Trident (Cdr. G.M. Sladen, DSC, RN) damages the German merchant Levante (4769 GRT) east of Havoysund, Norway in position 71º01'N, 24º34'E.
22 Aug 1941
HMS Trident (Cdr. G.M. Sladen, DSC, RN) torpedoes and sinks the German merchant Ostpreußen (3030 GRT) in the Kvaenangenfjord, Norway in position 70º12'N, 21º05'E.
30 Aug 1941
HMS Trident (Cdr. G.M. Sladen, DSC, RN) torpedoes and sinks the German merchants Donau II (2931 GRT) and Bahia Laura (8561 GRT) in Lopphavet, Norway in position 70º35'N, 21º45'E.
3 Sep 1941
While returning to base at Polyarnoe, Russia, HMS Trident (Cdr. G.M. Sladen, DSC, RN) is fired upon but missed by the German submarine U-566.
30 Sep 1941
HMS Trident (Cdr. G.M. Sladen, DSC, RN) fires three torpedoes against the German hospital ship Birka (1000 GRT) in the Breidsundet about 4 nautical miles north-west of Havøysund, Norway in position 71º03'N, 24º34'E. All three torpedoes missed their target.
3 Nov 1941
HMS Trident (Cdr. G.M. Sladen, DSC, RN) torpedoes and sinks the German auxiliary submarine chaser UJ 1213 / Rau IV (354 GRT) in the Porsangerfjord in position 70º58'N, 26º08'E. The German merchant Altkirch (4713 GRT) is missed in the same attack.
7 Nov 1941
HMS Trident (Cdr. G.M. Sladen, DSC, RN) fires three torpedoes against the German minesweeper depot ship MRS 3 / Bali north of the Laksefjorden in position 71º06'N, 26º57'E. The torpedoes missed their target.
23 Feb 1942
HMS Trident (Cdr. G.M. Sladen, DSO, DSC, RN) fires 7 torpedoes against the German heavy cruisers Prinz Eugen and Admiral Scheer west of Kristiansund, Norway in position 63º12'N, 07º00'E. Prinz Eugen is hit in the stern with one torpedo but Admiral Hipper is missed.

Sladen played Rugby fot the Navy with J.W.Linton and also represented his country at the sport .His Rugby career for England is summarised below(from scrum.com):

	Mat	Start	Sub	Pts	Tries	Conv	Pens	Drop	Won	Lost	Draw	%
overall	3	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2	0	33.33	Profile

Career summary
Grouping	Mat	Start	Sub	Pts	Tries	Conv	Pens	Drop	Won	Lost	Draw	%
v Ireland	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0.00
v Scotland	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0.00
v Wales	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	100.00

in England	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	50.00
in Scotland	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0.00

home	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	50.00
away	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0.00

year 1929	3	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2	0	33.33

*R Cove-Smith	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	50.00
*HG Periton	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0.00

is not captain	3	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2	0	33.33

won match	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	100.00
lost match	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0.00

Five/Six Nations	3	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2	0	33.33

Reindeer's wartime submarine trip

2009-12-13T11:31:00.005Z

An interesting story about a wartime submarine:

Reindeer's wartime submarine trip

Pollyanna the reindeer spent six weeks on HMS Trident

Historians at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport are remembering one of the more unusual moments of World War II.

In 1941, the crew of HMS Trident were given a reindeer as a gift by the USSR navy.

The 56 crewmen spent six weeks sharing their already confined living accommodation with the fully-grown reindeer nicknamed Pollyanna

The Submarine Museum at Gosport is paying homage to Pollyanna with a special Christmas family event on board another World War II submarine.

Wartime tale

While on operations, fighting German forces in the Arctic Circle in 1941, the British crew of the T-class HMS Trident were given a gift of a reindeer by a Soviet naval admiral.

Pollyanna would get fresh air at the main hatch before the sub dived

Bill Sainsbury from the Royal Navy Submarine Museum said: "The Russians were so grateful to the British especially at the time when no-one else was helping them - and this was all they had to give.

"The story goes that the British captain had mentioned his wife had trouble pushing her pram through the snow in England - and the Russian admiral said 'what you need is a reindeer!'. And I suppose because it was a gift, they didn't want to seem rude by refusing it."

On board

Living with a reindeer underwater in wartime conditions inevitably posed challenges for the crew. A barrel of moss given by the Russians soon run out and Pollyanna lived on scraps from the galley. She also developed a taste for wartime favourite, Carnation condensed milk.

Pollyanna was originally lowered into the submarine through a torpedo tube of the sub and it was hoped she could sleep in the torpedo and food store. However she apparently had more refined tastes and insisted on sleeping under the captain's bed.

Bill Sainsbury said: "There are lots of funny stories - apparently when the submarine surfaced for air, she would barge her way through the narrow corridors to the main hatch to get some fresh air before returning to the officers' mess."

Despite Pollyanna eating a navigation chart, the crew made it back to the UK where HMS Trident landed at Blyth in Northumberland.

However as the reindeer had over-indulged on condensed milk, she had actually put on weight and could not be fitted out through the torpedo tube.

Dry land

A dockside winch, with some assistance from a crewman with a broom, finally managed to get Pollyanna squeezed out of the submarine and onto dry land.

HMS Trident had a crew of 56, plus one reindeer

She was given to Regents Park Zoo (now London Zoo) where she lived out the rest of the war - although whenever she heard a loudspeaker or siren she was said to have ducked down as if she was still on the submarine.

Pollyanna died five years later, ironically within a week of her old ship, HMS Trident, being decommissioned and scrapped in 1947.

HMS Trident would have been a regular visitor to Portsmouth, the UK's main base for submarines during World War II. Gosport's Royal Navy Submarine Museum has HMS Alliance, a similar World War II era sub to HMS Trident, on permanent display.

As part of a festive weekend, the museum is offering Santa visits inside the sub, and although no reindeer is going to be squeezed down the torpedo tube, a barrel of moss will be left in the torpedo store in recognition of one of the Royal Navy's most unusual passengers during World War II.

This was not the only Reindeer to travel by Submarine though as this letter reproduced from the Daily Telegraph will show:

Navy pets

Cdr D J Foster (Rtd), Tilford, Surrey
Published: 12:01AM GMT 25 Jan 2002

SIR - HMS Trident's reindeer was not the first one to be imported from Russia by submarine. We took one to Scotland in HMS Tigris a few months earlier than Trident's. I think its name was Minsk.

Another Reindeer was killed in action:

Naval reindeer

Peter Smith, Southampton
Published: 12:01AM GMT 22 Jan 2002

SIR - I was fascinated to read about HMS Trident's reindeer. The Russians were generous with their gifts of reindeer; HMS Kent, I believe, brought one back from Murmansk, as did HMS Belfast.

The latter's was the only reindeer known to have died in a naval action. It went crazy during action against the Scharnhorst on December 26, 1943, and had to be shot. Its antlers once adorned the Belfast's wardroom.

Update

The story of a reindeer aboard a submarine was for many years just a part of the folklore of "The Trade".

It was proved to be correct though when the former Commanding Officer of HMS Trident left his papers to the Royal Navy Submarine museum:

The Daily Telegraph 16.1.02. pg 11.

The story of a reindeer that spent a month on board a Royal Navy submarine at the hight of the Second World War has been proved true by papers found in the loft of a former submariner.

For 60 years, Royal Navy wardrooms have been entertained by the tail of the Russian reindeer on Trident. Few belived it was anything other than an apocryphal tale.

But when the family of Cdr Geoffrey Sladen, the vessel's skipper, gave his papers to the Submarine Museum at Gosport, Hants, they were found to include proof of the reindeer's existence.

Cdr Jeff Tall, the museum's director, said the papers included a photograph of Cdr Sladen, a former England rugby international, with Polyanna the reindeer.

She had been taken on board when Trident docked at Murmansk in the winter of 1941 for repairs, said Cdr Tall. Cdr Sladen was invited to dinner with a Russian admiral.

"He mentioned to the admiral that his wife had trouble pushing her pram with two young babies in it it up the hill in winter.

"As they were due to depart a sack was slung over the hatch and Cdr Sladen thought no more about it until they had sailed when the sack was opened to reveal this baby reindeer, who was immediately christened Polyanna."

The reindeer spent a month in the cramped boat with 53 sailors on patrol off Norway seeking German warships trying to break out of the Baltic.

She slept in Cdr Sladen's cabin. Whenever the klaxon sounded as the submarine surfaced at night she charged to the hatch and stood guard over the ladder, only allowing Cdr Sladen to pass.

When Trident returned to Britain, Polyanna was too big to get through the hatch, said Cdr Tall. "Fortunately there was a butcher on board. He trussed her up with rope so that she was small enough to be passed through." She was taken to Regent's Park.

Blog update

2009-11-15T20:47:00.009Z

I thought it was time to share my future plans for this blog with those of you who visit regularly.
I have recently posted a number of entries which are not directly about Commander Linton but which I thought you might find interesting.I do however want to keep this blog centred on Linton,so hopefully some more specific entries will appear on his career and his submarines. in the next couple of months.
I have a reasonably sized cache of information on Linton which I have recently supplemented with some information I acquired on a visit to the National Archives at Kew.
I have had a copy for a while now of the patrol reports (that survive)of HMS Turbulent.I have now also acquired a copy of a selection of the control room logs for Turbulent plus copies of the surviving patrol reports from Pandora.
Unfortunately time and also a request limit were against me and I did not manage to examine the patrol room logs for Pandora but I will be returning to Kew to examine these.
I also intend to visit the Royal Navy Submarine museum to examine their archives.
http://www.rnsubmus.co.uk
My aim is to produce some articles on topics associated with classes of submarines Linton was familiar with and also add a mix of articles regarding his family and career.I will also supplement this with articles on other submarine topics which I feel you may find interesting.
My next topic will be on HMS Perseus and how this wreck compares with what the Chinese may have found in HMS Poseidon.
I am still going to moderate any comments,mainly to keep spam down,but I would welcome any comments about the articles,especially if you think I may have made a mistake.If you would like to follow the blog please let me know or join the new followers section.
I have also added a search function for those trying to find a specific topic.
I would also welcome any input from those visiting ,especially if you feel that you have something to add to the story
Finally I would like to reiterate that this blog remains advert free and free to view.However if you decide to use any of the articles or photographs I would appreciate it if you would give me the courtesy of requesting permission and give them proper attribution.
I am not producing this blog for financial gain,though obtaining the research can be a costly exercise!
I hope you enjoy the articles and please keep reading.

Poseidon Loss Part 4

2009-11-14T15:07:00.003Z

From the Daily Telegraph:

China admits secretly salvaging British submarine HMS Poseidon

China has admitted secretly salvaging a British submarine sunk in an accident in 1931, but claimed there was no sign of the remains or personal effects of the 18 men who were entombed in HMS Poseidon when it went down off the former naval base of Weihai.

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo
Published: 3:25PM GMT 13 Nov 2009

China admits secretly salvaging lost British submarine HMS Poseidon
HMS Poseidon
China admits secretly salvaging lost British submarine HMS Poseidon
Penny Lewis with a photo of her grandfather, Frederick C Tolliday Photo: JULIAN SIMMONDS

Beijing has only confirmed that it raised and scrapped the Poseidon in 1972 after its fate was reported by The Daily Telegraph shortly after the anniversary of the sinking on June 9.

But China's claim that the hull of the vessel contained no human remains, identity tags, watches, rings or other personal items has provoked anger among relatives of the men who died.

"It was a shock to discover the Chinese authorities' claims and I'm deeply upset and disappointed," said Penny Lewis, whose grandfather, Able Seaman Frederick Tolliday, died in the accident.

"And that is not only for myself, but especially on behalf of my father and grandmother who were both still alive in 1972 when the Poseidon was recovered," she said.

"The Royal Navy has always maintained that a large number of the crew never escaped from the vessel, including my grandfather, but this conflicts with the Chinese saying no remains or personal effects were discovered. Who is telling the truth?" said Mrs Lewis, 51, from Stevenage, Herts.

In a statement, the Ministry of Defence said it "takes very seriously the issue of the sovereignty of United Kingdom maritime graves."

Chinese authorities informed the ministry that "due to the long time that has passed and the lack of effective record keeping during that turbulent period of Chinese history, they have no more information that that which appears on the Shanghai Salvage Bureau's web site."

It was this brief reference to the raising of the Poseidon during the Cultural Revolution that caught the attention of American maritime historian Steven Schwankert. Subsequent inquiries led to evidence that the Chinese salvaged the vessel without informing London in order to test the skills of their naval special forces and newly formed underwater recovery units, as well as to clear a fishing area of a hazard that had been damaging fishermen's nets for four decades.

And while it is accepted that little more can be done to protest the raising of the vessel, there are hopes that China might be encouraged to conduct a new investigation into the remains of the crew, which experts believe would have been recovered.

After all, they point out, the CSS Hunley, one of the first submarines ever built and sunk in 1864 during the American Civil War, contained eight skeletons that had been almost perfectly preserved when it was recovered from Charleston harbour in April 2004.

"There is no doubt in my mind that there would have been human remains on board, and that means that either the people who raised the submarine lied to the Chinese government, or they are lying to us," said David Clarke, whose grandfather survived the sinking.

Petty Officer Reginald Clarke spent more than three hours inside the submarine before managing to escape using the then-new Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus, a rudimentary underwater breathing system designed to lift sailors to the surface. Eight men managed to leave a bow section compartment, although two failed to reach the surface and another died later.

"The answer the families have been given from the Chinese is completely unsatisfactory and not at all believeable," Mr Clarke added.

The question of the fate of the crew of the Poseidon was raised in Parliament in June by Dr Julian Lewis, the shadow defence minister, who believes that an opportunity still remains for both the families and the Chinese naval authorities to benefit from the situation.

"It is understandable that the Chinese authorities are sensitive about any remains that may have been discovered, but I do hope that they will check their records a little more thoroughly," he said.

"This is because they have a real opportunity to do something positive, by reaching out from their modern navy to the descendants of sailors in our inter-war navy, to strengthen bonds and perhaps even invite the relatives to an appropriate ceremony in Weihai to rebury any remains they have found," he added.

Abba ,Submariners,and Spying -2

2009-11-10T21:25:00.005Z

I thought I would add some more information regarding the service of the officers who sailed Tai-Mo-Shan.

Ommanney-Davis,
Carew
"Bertie"

Sg.Lt.19.05.1930
Sg.Lt.Cdr.19.05.1936 (retd 13.01.1937; own request)
A/Sg.Cdr. (retd)
< 08.1942 (reinstated on the active list 1945?)
Sg.Cdr.03.09.1945, seniority 27.12.1944 (retd 14.10.1958)
Mention in Despatches MID
11.12.1945
wind up Europe 45
Education: LRCP&S
02.09.1930-(02.1931)Assistant Medical Officer, HMS Suffolk (cruiser) (China)
05.10.1931(09.1932)Medical Officer, HMS Bridgewater (sloop) (China)
(04.1933)no appointment listed
05.1933-05.1934
on half-pay: together with four other officers commissioned, financed and had privately built the yacht Tai Mo Shan & sailed it from Hong Kong to the UK (Dartmouth) for a year (05.1933-05.1934)
11.06.1934-(08.)1934Assistant Medical Officer, HMS Effingham (cruiser) (Reserve Fleet, Portsmouth)
01.10.1934-(11.1934)medical officers' post-graduate course [HMS President]
08.01.1935-13.01.1937Naval Hospital, Plymouth [HMS Drake]
General Medical Practitioner, Boscastle & Tintagel
(04.1940)-(02.1941)HMS Victory (RN base, Portsmouth) *-
(12.1941)RN Sick Quarters, Bootle *
17.11.1941-(02.)1943RN Auxiliary Hospital, Seaforth
30.03.1943-1945HMS Renown (battlecruiser)
27.06.1945-(10.1947)Naval Hospital, Haslar [HMS Victory]
18.03.1948-(05.1950)Naval Hospital, Malta [HMS St Angelo]
24.07.1952-(07.1954)HMS Victory (for Portsmouth Group RM)
21.01.1955-01.)1956HMS Collingwood (training establishment for radar and electrical ratings, Fareham, near Portsmouth)
12.07.1956-(01.1957)RN Barracks, Portsmouth & for duty at RN Hospital, Haslar [HMS Victory]
* indexed, but not listed as such

Sherwood,
Martyn Butt
Midsh.15.09.1917
A/Lt.25.05.1923
Lt.15.06.1923
Lt.Cdr. *15.06.1931 (retd 19.10.1934; own request)
Cdr. (retd)
13.04.1941 (reverted to retd > 04.1946)
Distinguished Service Order DSO
16.08.1940
Norwegian coast [investiture 09.11.43]
Distinguished Service Order DSO
03.06.1941
Greek withdrawal ms Piraeus Harbour etc. [investiture 09.11.43]
Mention in Despatches MID
01.01.1943
New Year 43
War Cross, 3rd Class (Greece) GrWC
11.08.1942
mine clearance Piraeus etc. 41 [decoration presented]

Lloyd's Medal for Saving Life at Sea, silver (S.S. Ryujin Maru, 4th November 1931)

* Lt.Cdr., RAN (Emergency List) 08.11.1938-07.02.1939
Education: RN Colleges, Osborne (1915) & Dartmouth
20.09.1917(01.1919)HMS Benbow (battleship)
(1919?)HMS Wolsey (torpedo-boat destroyer) (Baltic)
HMS Benbow (battleship)
1921HMS Cornflower (Red Sea)
(05.1922)HMS President (for study at Cambridge)
(08.1923)short course of instruction
(09.1924)HMS L 56 (submarine)
16.09.192418.11.1924HMS Titania (submarine depot ship) (China)
19.11.1924-(05.1926)First Lieutenant, HMS L 2 (submarine) (China) [tender to HMS Titania]
(02.1927)no appointment listed
22.02.1927-08.1927)HMS Ramillies (battleship) (Atlantic Fleet)
02.1928-04.1928HMS Vulcan (submarine depot ship) (Portland)
04.1928-04.1929First Lieutenant, HMS L 71 (submarine)
29.04.1929-(08.)1929 submarine commanding officer's course, Portsmouth [HMS Alecto]
08.1929-26.08.1929First Lieutenant, HMS H 49 (submarine) [tender to HMS Vulcan]
26.08.1929-18.08.1930Commanding Officer, HMS H 49 (submarine) [tender to HMS Vulcan]
30.09.1930-05.1933HMS Hermes (aircraft carrier) (China)
05.1933-10.1934
no appointment listed (on half-pay): together with four other officers commissioned, financed and had privately built the yacht Tai Mo Shan & sailed it from Hong Kong to the UK (Dartmouth) for a year (05.1933-05.1934)
(03.1940)-21.05.1940HMS Cape Passaro (anti-submarine warfare trawler) [sunk by German aircraft off Navik 21.05.1940] *
02.07.1940-23.04.1942Commanding Officer, HMS Peony (corvette)
(08.1942)no appointment listed
(10.)1942-11.1942British Admiralty Delegation, Washington [HMS Saker II]
11.1942-(02.)1943Commanding Officer, LCI(L) 6 [HMS Asbury]
04.04.1943-(06.)1943HMS Dinosaur (Combined Operations base, Troon) (for LCI(L)'s)
07.1943-(08.)1943Executive Officer to R.Adm. Commanding LST Squadron Mediterranean [HMS Hamilcar]
01.10.1943-25.09.1944Commanding Officer, HMS Hart (sloop)
07.02.1945-20.04.1945Commanding Offficer, HMS Highlander (destroyer)
06.1945-(07.1945)HMS Braganza (RN base, Bombay, India) (for miscellaneous services)
18.12.1945-(04.1946)Commanding Officer, HMS Highway (landing ship dock)
Published: The voyage of the Tai-Mo-Shan (1935); Coston gun (1946; autobiography)
* indexed, but not listed as such

Ryder,
Robert Edward Dudley
"Red"
Midsh.01.01.1927
A/S.Lt.01.05.1929
S.Lt.12.08.1930, seniority 01.03.1929
Lt.01.06.1930
Lt.Cdr.01.06.1938
A/Cdr.< 04.1940
Cdr.31.12.1940
Capt.30.06.1948 (retd 23.02.1950)

Victoria Cross VC 21.05.1942 attack St. Nazaire 28.03.42 *
Mention in Despatches MID
02.10.1942
Operation Jubilee (Dieppe 08.42)
Mention in Despatches MID
14.11.1944
Operation Neptune (Normandy)
Mention in Despatches MID
19.12.1944
U-boats attacked convoy Dover Straits
Croix de Guerre (France) CdeG
?
St. Nazaire raid
Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur (France) LegH
?
St. Nazaire raid
* On 28 March 1942 in the attack on St. Nazaire, France, Commander Ryder, commanding the Naval force, led HMS Campbeltown in under intense fire. When the main objective of the expedition had been accomplished and Campbeltown had been beached, Commander Ryder remained on the spot evacuating men from Campbeltown and conducting operations while exposed to heavy fire, and did not withdraw until it was certain that his ship could be of no more use. His motor gun boat (MGB. 314), full of dead and wounded, survived by a miracle and managed to withdraw through an intense barrage of fire.

Education: Hazelhurst School, Frant, and Cheltenham College
1926 entered Royal Navy
15.01.192
1929 HMS Ramillies (battleship) (Atlantic Fleet)
02.05.1929 05.01.1930 promotion course, RN College, Greenwich [HMS President]
06.01.1930-(04.)1930 promotion course, Portsmouth
27.12.1930 04.)1933 HMS Olympus (submarine) (China)
05.1933-05.1934
on half-pay: together with four other officers commissioned, financed and had privately built the yacht Tai Mo Shan & sailed it from Hong Kong to the UK (Dartmouth) for a year (05.1933-05.1934)
02.07.1934-(07.1937) HMS President (for miscellaneous or special service):
1934-1937 a member of British Graham Land Expedition to the Antarctic: in command of the Research Yacht Penola (Polar Medal with Clasp)
30.08.1937-10.)1938 HMS Warspite (battleship) (Mediterranean)
23.10.1938-(08.)1939 HMS Warspite (battleship) (Mediterranean)
08.12.1939-04.)1940 Commanding Officer, HMS Willamette Valley (decoy or Q-ship)
1940 Commander [= Executive Officer], HMS Fleetwood (frigate)
01.02.1941-15.07.1941 Commanding Officer, HMS Prince Philippe (landing ship infantry (small)) (sunk)
19.08.1941-(12.1941) HMS President (for special and miscellaneous services):
1941-1942 Naval Liaison Officer on the staff of GOC Southern Command at Wilton House, near Salisbury
(08.1942)-(02.1943) Combined Operations HQ (Naval Administrative Planner):
28.03.1942 Naval Force Commander, St. Nazaire raid [10th Anti-Submarine Striking Force in MGB 314]
19.08.1942 took part in attack on Dieppe (Planning Staff)
01.05.1943-(06.)1944 HMS Vectis (RN base, Seaview, Isle of Wight)
(06.1944) Staff Captain, Group J2 (Normandy landings) [Deputy Senior Officer Assault Group in LCH 239]
14.08.1944-(07.1945) Commanding Officer, HMS Opportune (destroyer)
11.10.1945-(04.1946)Staff, Tactical and Staff Duties Division, Admiralty
01.03.1948-1950Naval Attaché, Oslo (Norway)
1950-1955 MP (C) Merton and Morden
Published: The attack on St Nazaire (1947); Coverplan (1953)

Salt,
George Stevenson
Cadet15.09.1925
Midsh.15.05.1926
A/S.Lt.01.09.1928
S.Lt.16.05.1929
Lt.16.09.1931
Lt.Cdr.16.09.1939

15.09.1925-(06.1928)HMS Valiant (battleship) (Mediterranean & Portsmouth)
04.1929-(08.1929)promotion course, Portsmouth
06.01.1930-(04.)1930submarine course, Portsmouth [HMS Dolphin]
09.1930-(04.)1933HMS Oswald (submarine) (China)
05.1933-(07.)1934
no appointment listed (on half-pay): together with four other officers commissioned, financed and had privately built the yacht Tai Mo Shan & sailed it from Hong Kong to the UK (Dartmouth) for a year (05.1933-05.1934)
02.07.1934-(02.)1935
First Lieutenant, HMS Sable (destroyer) (1st Anti-Submarine Flotilla, Portland) [tender to HMS Woolston]
(07.1935)no appointment listed
12.02.1936-02.1936)First Lieutenant, HMS Porpoise (submarine) (Portsmouth)
04.01.1937-(02.)1937submarine Commanding Officers' course, Portsmouth [HMS Dolphin]
06.06.1937-(02.)1938Commanding Officer, HMS Starfish (submarine) (2nd Submarine Flotilla)
20.04.1938-(09.1939)HMS Ark Royal (aircraft carrier) (Home Fleet)
(04.1940)no appointment listed
15.08.1940-20.10.1940
Commanding Officer, HMS Triad (submarine) [sunk during a close quarters exchange of gunfire and torpedoes with the Italian submarine Enrico Toti in the Gulf of Taranto]

Francis,
Philip Stewart
Cadet15.09.1925
Midsh.15.05.1926
A/S.Lt.01.09.1928
S.Lt.16.04.1929
Lt.16.06.1931
Lt.Cdr.16.06.1939
Cdr.31.12.1942 (retd 09.04.1956)
Distinguished Service Order DSO
30.06.1942
6 war patrols 09.41-04.42
Distinguished Service Order DSO
29.12.1942
war patrols 04-08.42
Education: Horton School, Biggleswade; RN College, Dartmouth (1921-1925)
29.08.1925-(05.)1926HMS Ramillies (battleship) (Atlantic Fleet)
11.09.1926-(06.1928)HMS Renown (battlecruiser) (Duke and Duchess of York's visit to Australia)
04.1929-08.)1929promotion course, Portsmouth
1929-1930motorcycle accident (hospital for 9 months)
[(04.1930) no appointment listed]
01.09.1930
-(10.)1930submarine course, Portsmouth [HMS Dolphin]
29.12.1930-(02.)1931HMS Medway (submarine depot ship) (for submarines) (China)
16.10.1931-(04.)1933HMS Otus (submarine) (Hong Kong)
05.1933-05.1934
on half-pay: together with four other officers commissioned, financed and had privately built the yacht Tai Mo Shan & sailed it from Hong Kong to the UK (Dartmouth) for a year (05.1933-05.1934)
(01.1934)no appointment listed
02.07.1934-(02.)1935First Lieutenant, HMS Rowena (destroyer) (Portland)
01.05.1935-(02.)1936First Lieutenant, HMS H 33 (submarine) (5th Submarine Flotilla)
23.04.1936-(02.)1937First Lieutenant, HMS Grampus (submarine) [under construction] (and for duty Class I with submarines)
26.04.1937-(07.)1937submarine commanding officers' course, Portsmouth [HMS Dolphin]
11.12.1937-(10.)1938Commanding Officer, HMS Spearfish (submarine) (6th Submarine Flotilla)
18.12.1938-09.1939)HMS Repulse (battlecruiser) (Home Fleet)
01.03.1940-(02.)1941Commanding Officer, HMS Talisman (submarine) (Channel, Bay of Biscay)
05.1941-(02.)1943Commanding Officer, HMS Proteus (submarine) (Mediterranean)
1943?-1943?Staff Officer (Operations), 1st Submarine Squadron [HMS Medway II] (Beirut) ?
06.05.1943-10.1944)Naval Equipment Department, Admiralty [HMS President]
14.05.1945-(04.)1946Executive Officer [then Commanding Officer], HMS Ferret IV (base of Captain [then Commander] S/M Surrendered U-Boats, Lishally, Northern Ireland)
27.07.1946-1948Commander S/M 4th Submarine Flotilla [HMS Adamant (submarine depot ship)] (Far East)
26.04.1948-(05.)1949Plans Division, Admiralty [HMS President]
13.06.1949-(05.1950)HMS Osprey (RN base, Portland) (for miscellaneous duties)
1951?-1952?Commander of Dockyard, Portland & Assistant King's Harbour Master [HMS Osprey]
11.07.1952-(05.1953)directing staff, RN Tactical School, Woolwich [HMS President]
10.01.1954-(01.1956)HMS Dolphin (submarine depot, Gosport)
Keen sportsman. Founder member of the Royal Naval Sailing Association, 1935. Retired to Dorset where he hunted regularly, farmed pigs and sailed his 30 ft sloop Peter Rabbit from Poole.

Abba,Submariners and Spying

2009-11-08T20:22:00.005Z

What is the connection between a well known theatre production and film based on the songs of Abba,a group of Royal Navy submariners and Spying?
The answer is a yacht!

I was recently trying to find a copy on the internet of a photograph of Commander Linton taken in a rest camp in the Lebanon in 1942.Also in the photograph is a Commander P.S Francis plus another unknown officer.I had no luck tracing the photograph so I searched the Unit histories website for a biography of this latter officer.
http://www.unithistories.com/
The entry on Fraser has a number of photographs of him which lead me to a website about a yacht,Tai-Mo-Shan, which appears to have been assembled by a previous owner of the vessel.
Tai-Mo-Shan is a 54 foot ocean racing ketch built in the yard of the Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock Co Ltd. She was to be constructed in teak and named Tai-Mo-Shan [High Hat Hill], after the highest mountain in the colony.
Her chief designer was H.S. Rouse, Vice-Commodore of the Hong Kong Yacht Club.
http://www.tai-mo-shan.co.uk/
The website contains a history of the yacht's maiden voyage with numerous photographs and links

The crew of Tai-Mo-Shan on her maiden voyage were four submariners and a naval doctor:
Surgeon Lieutenant Berty Ommaney-Davis
Lieutenant Commander Martyn Sherwood
Lieutenant Robert(Red) Ryder
Lieutenant George Salt
Lieutenant Philip Francis

Her very first voyage was in 1932, 16,217 miles without a motor, from Hong Kong to Dartmouth.The voyage took 364 days and took her against the prevailing winds north to Formosa then via Japan, the Kuriles,the Bering Sea, the Aleutian islands, Canada, California, Panama, the West Indies and the Bahamas.

During a typhoon the yacht weathered 70 mile per hour gusts hove to, 6 points to the wind. In his book Sherwood tells us that their beautifully balanced boat never gave them a moment's anxiety.

The young officers were lionized wherever they landed: (indeed the loss of Lt. Francis's formal dinner jacket, while buying a monkey in Formosa, proved a great handicap!). Their arrival at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth was a triumph, staff, students and the press sailing out to meet them with a congratulatory telegram from King George V.

The five young officers had been warned about economising on canvas by their sailmaker Ah Lung, who made them sixteen sails in eight-ounce cotton duck. Every sail was entirely hand-stitched. Ah Lung had rejected the first canvas offered to him, as it was, "All can-do for play-pidgin harbourside, no can-do outside". After deciding to economise by leaving out an engine, the officers had to ask the formidable Admiral Howard Kelly for permission to sail the new yacht to England by an unorthodox route.The planning of this route will be explained later.
"Quite rightly", wrote Lt Martyn Sherwood later, "We were placed on half-pay for the entire voyage". The irascible admiral's approval, that it was "refreshing to note this spirit of adventure and initiative", came with a pay cut, down to seven shillings a day for each man. Admiralty penny-pinching was somewhat balanced by a splendidly-timed congratulatory telegram, sent to Dartmouth by King George V.
In 1935, Lt Martyn Sherwood published The Voyage of The Tai-Mo-Shan, his account of the yacht's first three years. The book was re-published after the war by Arthur Ransome's publisher, Rupert Hart-Davis, in The Mariners' Library series. Sherwood told how Red Ryder had largely supervised construction of Tai-Mo-Shan, while Sherwood and Salt had prepared for the voyage by taking cooking lessons from a Swiss chef in Hong Kong. They loaded some fairly advanced radio equipment and promised to observe currents and visibility for the Admiralty. They were cruising the cold and foggy seas where eight years later, Admiral Yamamoto would hide his aircraft carriers in the days before the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Against Tai-Mo-Shan's strong cockpit "breakwater" was lashed a "canvas collapsible boat", which saw much action in the Bahamas, when the ketch was trapped on Crooked Island and heeled over at 45 degrees with a broken tiller. As Red Ryder travelled to Nassau, to try and hire a tug, the other men camped ashore and tried to persuade the poverty-stricken permanent inhabitants to excavate a breakwater around the stricken ketch. The islanders were Seventh Day Adventists, so poor that they owned only one shovel between them and dared not use it on rough work in sea water, as they needed it for burying their dead. The cash cost of escaping from Crooked Island was
eighty pounds in payments to the islanders, a tow by a local schooner, the replacement of two teak planks and some Muntz metal sheathing. All agreed it would have been cheaper to have bought an engine in Hong Kong.
After arriving in Great Britain, Tai-Mo-Shan was run by the Royal Naval Sailing Association.
Research by the British magazine Classic Boat and The Times revealed in 2007 that the voyage had been more than a great yachting exploit. The young naval officers were spying on Imperial Japanese Navy anchorages in the Kurile Islands that were later used for the attack on Pearl Harbour.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2324103.ece

The real reason for the voyage only emerged when the papers of Lieutenant(later Commander) Ryder were examined.
Ryder’s personal documents reveal that the crew proposed to Naval Intelligence that they would examine the military potential of the Kuriles, a volcanic island archipelago stretching 700 miles northeast from Japan. The islands were sparsely populated, shrouded in fog six days in every seven and were believed to have deep ports required for warships and submarines.
On his planning notes for the voyage, Ryder stated that the first aim was to find possible bases for British vessels close to the Japanese islands: “1. Intelligence Report on all places visited . . . Observing any possibilities advanced base for submarine operations, or as a W/T [wireless transmitter] or W/T F. [wireless interception] in the event of hostilities against Japan or between Japan and America.”
Before sailing, the crew asked the Japanese authorities for permission to sail close to the islands, but the Japanese Foreign Minister refused.
In July 1933 the crew berthed at the port of Nemuro on the tip of Hokkaido, only 50 miles (80km) from the islands. In a report sent to the Director of Naval Intelligence in London, the crew wrote that their route had attracted the close attention of Japanese naval officers.
“We were subjected to close cross-examination through an interpreter, by someone we suspected of being a naval authority,” the report reads.
“From the interrogation it was obvious that the Japanese had something of a secret nature in the Northern Kuriles. Pointing to the island of Paramushir [one of the islands] they wanted to know how far off it we would pass and what day! What was our daily progress? And could they verify this from the log?”
The report says that after sailing into Japanese waters the crew were forced by the Imperial Navy to abandon their plans for a night-time landing on the islands. “The possibility of paying Paramushir a nocturnal visit was under consideration . . . but it was so obvious that [a Japanese naval ship] would be waiting for us that the project was abandoned.”
Ryder's papers are lodged with Churchill Archives Centre
http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD/GBR/0014/RDER

Robert Ryder served in the Royal Navy, 1926-50. He was a Midshipman in the battleship HMS Ramillies, 1927-9, and a Lieutenant in the submarine HMS Olympus in China, 1930-3. He was also an explorer, captaining the ketch Tai-Mo-Shan on a 16, 217 mile voyage from Hong Kong to Dartmouth via the Panama Canal, 1933-4, and taking part in the British Graham Land Expedition to the Antarctic, in command of the three-masted schooner Penola, 1934-7. He was Lieutenant Commander in the battleship HMS Warsprite; he served with the force of decoy or Q-ships, 1940; he was Commander of the frigate HMS Fleetwood, 1940; he captained the Prince Philippe, which sank after a collision in the Firth of Clyde, 1941; and he was Naval Liaison Officer on the staff of GOC Southern Command at Wilton House, near Salisbury, 1941-2. He led the naval forces in Operation Chariot, the raid on the dry dock at St Nazaire, 27-28 March 1942, and took part in Operation Jubilee, the attack on Dieppe, 19 August 1942. He was promoted to the rank of Captain, 1949, and served as Naval Attaché in Oslo, 1948-50. On retiring from the Navy, he was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Merton and Morden, 1950-5. He died during a sailing trip to France, 29 June 1986.

He was awarded the Victoria Cross (gazetted 21 May 1942), the Polar Medal with clasp, the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre.

Commander Martyn Sherwood was awarded two DSOs, in 1940 when his anti-submarine trawler Cape Passaro was bombed and sunk off the Norwegian Coast and in 1941 in the withdrawal from Piraeus harbour. In 1945 he commanded the German end of Operation Homeward, the confiscation of captured "windfall yachts".

Lt Philip Francis earned two DSOs as a determined submarine captain in the Mediterranean in 1941 and 1942. His crew said he had "a brain packed in ice" and on nine patrols, defending Malta, sinking supply ships bound for Rommel's Afrika Korps, Philip Francis scored 20 hits out of 51 torpedoes fired. In 1945, commanding the Northern Ireland submarine base at Lisahally, he took the surrender of 63 German U-boats, complimenting the crews on their discipline and impeccable conduct in a bloody campaign that had ended in total defeat.

George Salt was lost in the Mediterranean in 1940. He was the captain of the submarine Triad, missing for forty years, but now known to have been sunk during a close quarters exchange of gunfire and torpedoes with the Italian submarine Enrico Toti at night in the Gulf of Taranto. His son, Rear Admiral 'Sam' Salt (Captain of HMS Sheffield when she was sunk by a missile in the 1982 Falklands War) also served as a submariner.

The link to Abba must finally be explained.Tai-Mo-Shan was sold by the RNSA in 1949 or 1950 and since then she has had a succession of owners.
After a big refit in Turkey in 2005, described by Steffan Meyric-Hughes in Classic Boat for August 2006, Tai-Mo-Shan caught the eye of the producers of the 2008 film of the Abba musical Mamma Mia.
She was chartered by Tom Hanks, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson to cruise Greek waters for the shooting of the film with Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Julie Walters, Stellan Skarsgård and Pierce Brosnan, on board.
The actors and the producers were unaware that 74 summers earlier, Tai-Mo-Shan had slipped out of Yokohama on a cunning spy mission that would, in the best tradition of the Royal Navy, stay secret for a very long time.

I never did find a copy of the photograph I was originally looking for!

Commander William "Bill" King

2009-11-03T22:23:00.008Z

Whilst investigating the rest camp for submariners that existed in World War 2 in the Lebanese countryside I discovered this 12 minute clip of an interview with Commander Bill King.His piece starts about 4 .20minutes in.!
http://www.scispy.ie/fionn_films/thumbnails/asx/22Submarines.asx

I have included a brief biography of him plus a link to his Wiki page.

King,
William Donald Aelian
"Bill"
W.D.A. King
Son of Lt.Col. William Albert de Courcy King. Married (01.01.1949) Anne ("Anita") Theodosia Mouira Leslie, writer, daughter of Sir John Randolph Shane Leslie, 3rd Bt.; one son, one daughter.

23.06.1910
Surrey
-
08.2006 still alive
Oranmore Castle, Galway, Ireland

Midsh.
01.05.1928
A/S.Lt.
01.09.1930
S.Lt.
01.03.1931
Lt.
01.12.1932
Lt.Cdr.
01.12.1940
Cdr.
30.06.1943
< href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_King_%28Royal_Navy_officer%29">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_King_%28Royal_Navy_officer%29

Lost Submarine found.

2009-10-23T16:44:00.005+01:00

A story of a remarkable discovery of a World War 1 submarine.

BBC NEWS
Sub's wartime grave discovered

By James Landale
BBC News

The wreck of a British naval submarine lost for more than 90 years has been found in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Estonia.

HMS E18 - with its complement of three officers and 28 ratings - went out on patrol in May 1916 and was never seen again.

The submarine was one of a handful sent to the Baltic during World War I by Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, to disrupt German shipments of iron ore from Sweden and support the Russian navy.

E18 left its base in the Russian port of Reval - now Tallinn, the capital of Estonia - on the evening of 25 May 1916 and headed west.

The following day she was reported to have engaged and torpedoed a German ship.

A few days later, possibly 2 June, she is believed to have struck a German mine and sunk with all hands.

Appendicitis

Following the submarine's loss, Tsar Nicholas of Russia gave posthumous medals to the crew, including my great-uncle, Luke Landale, the 1st Lieutenant, who was awarded the Order of St Vladimir. He was just 27 years old.

The submarine was found last weekend close to the Estonian island of Hiiumaa by a Swedish marine survey company, MMT.

They were guided by information provided by an Australian descendant of one of the crew, Darren Brown - an airline engineer from Melbourne - who has spent years researching the submarine's history.

His great-grandfather, Signalman Albert Robinson survived the loss of E18 because he fell ill with appendicitis shortly before its last patrol and was confined to his bed.

The Swedish survey vessel, the MV Triad, deployed a remote-operated vehicle and obtained the first pictures showing the 181ft (55m)-long submarine in remarkably good condition.

The Baltic water is cold, brackish and anoxic which means wrecks suffer less rust and degradation than in other seas.

There are also fewer potentially damaging ocean currents.

Photographs from the seabed show the submarine with its hatch open, suggesting that it was sailing on the surface when it hit the mine.

David Hill, an expert in E-class submarines who has examined the images, said: "Without a shadow of doubt they do show an E-class submarine and certain details indicate that it is probably E18."

Successful missions

The owner of the survey company, Carl Douglas, said the discovery was the fruition of almost a decade of work.

"We will now complete our mission to document this wreck and inform the relevant authorities," he said.

"We want to investigate the exact cause of the sinking - and to honour the fallen by telling their story."

The E-class boats were considered to be Britain's most successful submarines during World War I.

E18's sister ship, E19, once sank four German transport ships on one day in October 1915.

These were the submarines that flew the Jolly Roger after successful combat operations to cock a snook at the snobbish, surface-based admirals who looked down on their submerged colleagues.

Such was the success of the eight submarines in the Baltic that it was here the Germans developed the convoy system to protect their shipping.

E18 carried five torpedo tubes and a 12lb gun on deck. It had a top surface speed of 15 knots, submerged it could make 10 knots.

With its four diesel and electric engines and its twin screws, it had a surface range of about 3,000 nautical miles; submerged it could cover more than 60 nautical miles.

But the Baltic was a dangerous place for submarines. Not only is its entrance between Denmark and Sweden extremely narrow, but the sea itself is shallow, providing few deep hiding places.

Rarely did E18 reach its diving limits of about 200 ft.

E18 was the only E-class submarine lost on active service in the Baltic; the rest were scuttled by the Navy off Helsinki in April 1918 to avoid capture by advancing German forces.

Of the 57 E-class submarines that were built during World War I, 26 were lost.

'Pants down'

Conditions on board the E-class submarines were pretty basic and extremely cramped.

There was just one bunk which the three officers shared; the ratings slept where they could.

The heads - or toilets - were more often than not a bucket. The weather in the Baltic was also extremely cold, with much of the submarine's superstructure freezing over the moment it surfaced.

E18, which was launched in early 1915, was once bombed by a Zeppelin airship after its captain, Lt Cdr Robert Halahan, surfaced so he could go to the loo on deck rather than in the cramped conditions down below.

As such, he was literally caught with his pants down.

Shortly before E18's last patrol, Lt Cdr Halahan was told by a fortune teller that his life was "in grave danger".

So he asked the local Vice-Consul's wife if she could inform his own wife of his death - if E18 was lost - before the official Admiralty telegram reached his home.

The story of E18's ill-fated voyage is to be retold in a documentary, Churchill's Lost Submarine, made by Mallinson Sadler Productions.

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Happy Birthday

2009-10-15T19:58:00.002+01:00

Today is Commander Linton's birthday.He would have been 104 years old.
I would like to thank all of you who look at my blog.I have numerous articles I am preparing about his life and will post some of them soon.

Submariner Memorial London

2009-09-23T15:31:00.004+01:00

A memorial exists on London's Embankment to commemorate the men lost in Royal Navy Submarines.
The post below gives some background history to its existence and also I have reproduced part of an article by a member of the Submariners association about it.

Victoria Embankment (Thames Side)
Nr Temple Pier (Temple tube)
London

Submariners memorial - Sculptor: F Brook Hitch, Architect: A H Ryan Tenison FRIBA This is a war memorial to the Submariners of both world wars comprising a monumental stepped granite plinth set into the Thames embankment wall, constructed form large rectangular slabs and blocks of granite on which is mounted a large bas-relief sculptural bronze memorial plaque depicting the cross section of the interior of an early submarine surrounded by sea spirits and fish. This central element is surrounded by an architectural framework decorated with further sculptures and sculptural embellishments. To either side of this central bronze plaque are 40 bronze wreath hooks in the form of anchors. An additional plaque was added below the large plaque in 1992 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the unveiling of the original memorial.
Plaque details

At the top of the memorial are the following words:

Erected to the memory of the officers and men of the British Navy who lost their lives serving in submarines 1914 - 1918 and 1939 - 1945.

On the left hand side of the main memorial is a list of submarines lost in the Great War (1914 - 1918), and on the right hand side is a list of submarines lost during the Second World War (1939 - 1945).

The 70th Anniversary plaque reads:

National Submarine War Memorial (1922)
This plaque commemorates the memorial's seventieth anniversary and the contribution by the members of the submariners old comrades, London, in their devotion to the upkeep of this memorial, unveiled by Peter P Rigby C.B.E.

File WORK 20/141 held at The National Archives gives us some background information on this war memorial situated on the Thames side of the Victoria Embankment opposite Temple Gardens in London. Whilst it accredits the architect A H Ryan Tenison F.R.I.B.A. it does not mention the sculptor Frederick Brook Hitch who was born in 1897 and died in 1957.

The memorial was unveiled on the 15th December 1922 and features in the centre a bas-relief showing the interior of a submarine with nereids swimming on either side. On the right and left are statues representing Truth and Justice. On either side of the central bronze plaque are 40 bronze wreath hooks in the form of anchors.

In 1992 an additional plaque was added to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the unveiling of the original memorial.

At the top of the memorial is the inscription:-

“Erected to the memory of the officers and men of the British Navy who lost their lives serving in submarines 1914-1918 and 1939-1945”

On the left hand side is a list of the submarines lost in the 1914-1918 conflict and on the right a list of submarines lost from 1939 to 1945.

The 70th Anniversary plaque reads:

'“National Submarine War Memorial (1922)This plaque commemorates the memorial’s seventieth anniversary and the contribution by the members of the submariners old comrades, London, in their devotion to the upkeep of this memorial, unveiled by Peter P.Rigby C.B.E.J.P.”'

The following is from In Depth the magazine of the Submariners Association

This is the first of a series of articles covering my involvement with the National Submarine War Memorial. My intention is to serve it up in easily digestible portions as I go through my papers and so I start with the years 1985-1986. ">Having served in the Royal Navy as man and boy from 1944 to 1968, I joined the Metropolitan Police Special Constabulary in 1969 and during the next couple of years I met a PC from the Patrol Group. He was an ex-submariner, who in turn introduced me to Albert Snowdon (ex STO 1^st Class); Albert had formed the Middlesex Branch of the SOCA, which met at The Rising Sun in Heston, so I was one of the founder members, circa 1971.

Moving on to 1985, having been up North and back again, I transferred from the Hull (actually my birth place) Branch of SOCA to Bromley Branch and shortly thereafter to London BranchIt must have been July 1985 and I attended our Branch meeting at the Union Jack Club when, unusually, I went to the bar for a pint of beer. Most of the members went straight home (due mainly to age); the ‘Bromley set’ went to their favourite club in Bromley. Standing at the bar was our President, Rear Admiral Anthony (Gamp) Miers, VC and his oppo was GPC member and Clerk to the House of Lords Committee, Mr George Day BEM. They were in deep conversation so I stood to the end of the bar. Gamp was facing me and called me over, as I ordered my beer, and he said, “Les, have this one on me”. Nobody, but nobody, had heard that ‘order’ in living memory.

The conversation was the 1985 AGM and in particular the question of someone to take over the Hon. Secretary/Treasurer position from George Aveling , who had held the position for 12 years and for the last 5 years had been trying to get someone else to take it on.

As my private life was in disarray, I didn’t really need such a responsibility. The truth was that I had never performed Hon. Secretary duties before but it was an opportunity to serve SOCA, so I agreed. I enjoyed my beer and Gamp putting his arm around my shoulders, saying, “Well done Les, you have done us all a favour”.

Anyway I was elected Hon. Secretary/Treasurer, there being no other candidates. Unfortunately, my encounter with Gamp and George Day was my last. Both became ill and firstly Rear Admiral Sir Anthony Miers, VC, KBE, CB, DSO died, followed shortly by George Day, another good friend of SOCA. Together, Gamp as National President (which he was prior to becoming President of London SOCA) and George as a leading light of the GPC, had contributed so much to SOCA. Sadly, it was also time for the Rev. Christopher H Benson, our padre and friend for many years, to retire to the West Country.

It was not until I attended the Submarine War Memorial (I had marched there the previous year) and attended the Chrysanthemum dinner on the Saturday that I realised that the Memorial was part and parcel of my duties. I paraded and noted the routine which would be my responsibility alone in 1986 and for a further seven years. Richard, my youngest son then aged five, was with me and when he was older also attended the dinners.

1985 was quiet for me; I was so new to my task. Pat Nash (Chairman), George Aveling, my predecessor, and John Holmes (Bromley) offered their advice and, as we were all ex-seamen, the Parade/Service was a doddle, but needed shaping up. The Dinner was the social event and the Parade/Service a gathering from the country and the world at large to honour our submarine war dead.

Following the death of Gamp, in September 1985 I wrote to Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, GCB, GBE, inviting him to become Branch President. I was unaware at the time that he had just taken over as Chief of the Defence Staff. He had to decline but said, “I am most honoured to have been asked to succeed such a distinguished officer as Admiral Sir Anthony Miers”. Sir John’s wife, Lady ‘Midge’ Fieldhouse, was to become a supporter and friend in later years.

1986 was my first full year and a very formative one it turned out to be. The London Residuary Body was sorting out the splitting up of the Greater London Council between various responsible bodies. Our Memorial was originally registered with the London County Council in 1922 on payment of the sum of two guineas paid as stamp duty. Up until the demise of the Greater London Council (GLC) in 1986, no one but no one had cared for it or even recognised it. I believe that London SOCA may have asked the GLC in the late 1970s to clean the edifice or, at least, allow volunteers to take soap and water to it. There is no record of this happening, but I can confirm that no local authority had maintained the Memorial.

So I contacted English Heritage and the Maritime Museum, but to no avail. Then, on 16 January 1986, I turned to the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Alan Davis, GBE, explaining in much detail why I thought the City of London would be an ideal ‘landlord’, as opposed to the Thames Water Authority (who owned the site of the Memorial, whilst the pavement belonged to the City). On 27 January 1986, Rear Admiral A J Cooke, CB, the Lord Mayor’s private secretary, wrote to say my letter was being referred to the Town Clerk. The Town Clerk, Mr Rowley, wrote to me on 31 January 1986 (my birthday so it was like a present to me), saying that he was not aware that a final decision had been made in the matter but he would endeavour to collect further information so that the future maintenance of the Memorial would be assured.

Events moved on and on 25 March 1986 Mr Rowley wrote again and said that whilst he was sorry that he could not give a definitive answer, it looked as if the Memorial would become the Corporation’s responsibility. In the meantime, I wrote to the Lord Mayor’s private secretary to thank all concerned for their kindness and gave him an update – which looked good for our future relations with the Corporation.

I also invited the Lord Mayor to join us, with Vice Admiral Tony Troup (National President), at our Dinner prior to the Parade. This was really a no hoper as it was the weekend when the Lord Mayor leaves office and, apparently, his last chance to have a party with his staff. Still, I used the opportunity to cement our continuing excellent assistance from the City of London Police – Snow Hill Police Station.

The 31 July 1986 saw our AGM with Rear Admiral Tony Whetstone, CB as our new President and my first as Hon. Secretary/Treasurer. We had both been at Gamp’s funeral at Southwark Roman Catholic Cathedral. I bet that Gamp was chuckling that, at last, he had got us into his church!

The sad thing was that we were about to lose our Dinner and Parade/Service venue, HMS Chrysanthemum, as she was sailed away in 1987. It was a good weekend and the Dinner was well organised by our Social Secretary of 40 years, Arthur Farnham. I well remember ‘Arfur’s’ two specials – ‘Babies Heads’ (Steak and Kidney Pudding) and ‘Crappe on a raft’ also know as ‘Sh** on a raft’ (Kidneys on toast). This was his last event as he also retired, again to the West Country.

It was a year when I managed to get the City Police to help our Service at the Memorial by, on my signal, traffic being brought to a complete stop on the contra flow until the end of the two minutes silence.

Until 1986 we had to scratch around for a band – usually a Sea Cadet Bugle Band. That year we had TS Standfast from Kingston-upon-Thames. They were our mainstay and we had Sea Cadets, male and female, to hand the wreaths to the VIPs.

Lt Browning (the Parade Commander in 1985) organised the RN presence for the Parade/Service on 2 November 1986. A bugler had been arranged by the RM Band Service plus a platoon from the Submarine Refit Group, Devonport assisted by the 2^nd Submarine Squadron. The platoon was drawn from HMS Sceptre, HMS Spartan and junior ratings. For the first time we entertained two officers and two senior ratings at our Dinner, the last one on board HMS Chrysanthemum. Some readers may recognise their names from this extract from parade orders.

Originally, and for the record, the Memorial was erected and unveiled as ‘Submarine War Memorial’. I decided in 1986 to upgrade it to ‘National Submarine War Memorial (1922)’, and so it remains, with only one comment from a SOCA member. What was good enough for Gamp Miers is good enough for me and, indeed, those who did not comment on my decision. After all, the T boat logo I developed for London SOCA was adopted for a short time by the GPC.

On 1 October 1986, I had to write to our new padre, the Rev. Ken Loveless. Like me, our President, Rear Admiral Tony Whetstone, and the National President, Vice Admiral Tony Troup, had noticed that the padre tended to take over and run the show to the detriment of my co-ordinating role. Their suggestion of having a serving padre was the answer and the real cure for what could have developed into a farce. Ken Loveless was a liberal imbiber of whisky, but a real good egg; a survivor from a U boat attack in the early 40s. He responded to Tony and my letters, quite content that a serving padre would lead the service at the Memorial and Ken would assist him.

New arrangements were needed to cater for people who did not wish to travel to Bromley following the Parade/Service. Some diplomacy was needed with certain members and the ‘Bromley set’, but I asked our member Ron Mitchell (Secretary of the RNA, Chelsea and Fulham) to take over this entertaining function and this proved to be a great success.

I had to report the death of one of our aging members from World War I: Jim Connor, Chief Stoker from Billericay. He joined London SOCA in 1933, which rules out those who question the establishment of London in 1932. Also, Jack Caulfield died on Monday, 29 September 1986; Jack had been the branch Hon Secretary for years and was still a committee member at the time of his death.

A ‘dit’ is in order. Jack’s last hours were a sailor’s dream of shuttling off this mortal coil. A good night out on the Saturday with the RNA. On the Monday he told his family he needed fresh air and went with his chum to the golf club; he died on the first tee! Together with Ron Mitchell, we attended the funeral (at 36 hours notice) – Ron carried the RNA’s standard and I carried the London SOCA standard. Ron and I were on our way to the HMS Dolphin reunion. I advised Jack’s family of how to spread his ashes at sea, from HMS Dolphin.

From November 1986, SOCA was represented at the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey. The first Field of Remembrance was opened in 1928 and the event is particularly associated with HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which she opened for the last time in November 2001. Tony Whetstone and I collaborated on this and in 1986 he placed a cross in the RNA section of the Naval Plot. He noted that there was no specific section for Submariners and, as a result, wrote to FOSM in order to remedy the situation for future years.

Perhaps appropriately, on 11 November 1986 the Town Clerk of the Corporation of London wrote to me with the news for which I had been waiting. It contained the words, “The Corporation’s Policy and Resources Committee decided yesterday to make a bid for the memorial and I have duly written to the London Residuary Body setting out our case”. In receiving this letter, I began to feel more confident that the future of the Memorial would be in good hands.

As the year came to an end, with the imminent departure of Chrysanthemum, we had to begin to consider where we could hold our Dinner and where we could operate from for our Parade/Service in 1987.

Also, as the year ended, a first and last. Rear Admiral Dick Heaslip appointed a Wren as his new Flag Lieutenant – Second Officer Susan Payn WRNS. I found out this, when on keeping FOSM informed of the progress with the City and their bid to the London Residuary Body, I received a reply from Susan Payn.

Poseidon- a son's tale.

2009-09-04T11:56:00.004+01:00

I was contacted by David Collings of Barrow-in -Furness.His father was lost in the Poseidon disaster and he has supplied the following information from his local newspaper.

Where has China taken dad?

Published , Saturday, 25 July 2009

AN international mystery over what happened to the wreck of the Vickers-built submarine Poseidon has left one Barrow man to wonder about what the Chinese have done with his dad?

NAVAL SALUTE: A memorial service held at the site of the Poseidon sinking

The Foreign Office is waiting for the Chinese government to make any comment about claims by an American researcher that the boat was raised and scrapped in secrecy during the 1970s.

On board would have been the remains of 18 sailors who failed to escape as Poseidon rapidly sank in around 130ft of water.

David Collings, of Park Avenue, Barrow, never got to meet his father Amos.

Amos and his young bride Ida, of Mount Pleasant, Barrow, had been married just over a year when the submarine sank after a collision with trading ship Yuta off Wei-Hai-Wei in June 1931.

As Ida waited at home for the dreadful confirmation that her husband was dead, she was already pregnant and David was born in September that year.

The topic was never off-limits in the Collings household and David has retained a remarkable group of pictures and documents from the dramatic events of 1931 which attracted world attention.

He said: “I knew right from the start about what happened to my father and my mother never married again.

“He was a bit of a boxer and he had a broken nose.

“They were going to send him home to get it fixed.”

Amos was from Cornwall and all he ever wanted was a career at sea.

His son said: “He ran away from home to join the Navy at 15.”

His father’s fate did nothing to put David off a career at sea and he became an engineer in the Merchant Navy, working on freight ships.

He was later a bus fitter at Barrow Corporation Transport for 37 years.

Now, after more than 70 years, the Poseidon is back in the news again and he would like some answers about whether his father’s body is still on the seabed – or somewhere else.

Only two bodies were officially recovered from Poseidon and they are buried in China, close to where the submarine went down.

The names of the others to die, including Amos Collings, are also recorded in stone at the site.

Mr Collings said: “I would have thought if they had found remains then they would be put into the same plot with the others.

“I don’t mind if the submarine has been raised but I would like to know what they have done with the remains.”

“I often thought of going out to China to see the memorial stone but I never got round to it.”

The puzzle over what happened to the submarine is now in the hands of Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, David Miliband.

In a written reply to questions, his department said: “We are aware of reports that the submarine HMS Poseidon was salvaged in 1972.

“We have sought clarification from the Chinese authorities, and await their reply.”

The disaster, 20 miles off the Chinese coast, came on June 9, in 1931, and was followed by several days of torment for the family in Barrow.

First came news of an accident with many lives lost, then hopes were raised as contact was made with eight survivors huddled together on part of the submarine.

A major rescue operation involving several naval ships was called off after a few days when it was established the wreck was in up to 12ft of mud and could not be raised with the technology available at the time.

A still hopeful Mrs Collings, aged just 19, told the Mail: “I only knew him for about a week before we were married.

“He came from Devonport last year to join the submarine and I met him.

“When he had 10 days leave, he came up to Barrow on a Wednesday and we were married by special licence at St George’s Church the following Friday, June 6th.

“I went down to his home in Cornwall and six months later he went on the Poseidon to China.”

Ida’s mother, Mrs J E Dickinson, said: “He had four more years to serve and my daughter, who is just 19, was hoping he would leave the Navy then.

“His mother never wanted him to join the Navy but he has always been keen on it.

“He was one of the best men I have ever met.”

As the rescue drama continued, Mrs Dickinson said: “If he was alive when the submarine sank, he is alive now.

“He is the type of man who will never give up hope.”

Poseidon was commissioned at Barrow in March 1930 for service in the seas off China and was launched on June 21 in 1931, the ceremony being performed by Mrs Haggard, wife of Vice-Admiral Vernon Haggard.

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk

Alfa class SSN report declassified

2009-09-03T23:32:00.002+01:00

I discovered this submarine about the Soviet SSN Alfa class and thought it was worth sharing!!

Unravelling a Cold War Mystery

The ALFA SSN: Challenging Paradigms, Finding New Truths, 1969–79

Gerhardt Thamm

This article originally appeared in a classified Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 37 No. 3 (Fall 1993). The author received a Studies in Intelligence Annual Award for it in 1994. The article was declassified with slight redactions in 2007.

We knew that the Soviets did not follow our practice in building submarines; they did not incorporate edge-of-technology items in series-production models.

Better is the enemy of good enough.

This Russian proverb incorporates a philosophy that is both wise and true to the Russian heart. Those who have learned to appreciate the Russian character will agree that most Russians instinctively adhere to and follow that philosophy. To build, to create things good enough to do what they are meant to do is wise; to make them better than necessary is a waste of energy and precious resources. The proverb reportedly was inscribed on a plaque in the office of Deputy Minister of Defense and Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei Gorshkov, who had guided the development of his navy since 1956.

Those of us who watched the building of the Soviet Navy from its humble beginnings as a coastal defense force after World War II to a powerful bluewater navy noticed long ago that the old proverb was true, even when it came to building submarines.

We knew that the Soviets did not follow our practice in building submarines; they did not incorporate edge-of-technology items in series-production models. And we saw Soviets building double-hull submarines long after we had discovered that the modern single-hull design had many advantages over the double hull, among them an improved speed/horsepower ratio. While the US Navy leaped decades ahead in submarine design, the Soviets plodded along by improving tried technologies. Our submarines not only looked better, they were better.

Yet the Soviets seemed satisfied with evolutionary advances in submarine design. Many US intelligence analysts were sure that the Soviets were never going to “put all their eggs into one basket.” Soviet society punishes failure; designing high-risk submarines does not enhance one's career.

It took infinite patience to fit this miscellany into the ALFA assessment. Although it was a difficult challenge, it was a task in which most intelligence analysts excel.

Phase One

This was the consensus of Western intelligence analysts, at least until one pleasant day in 1969 when strollers walking along the Neva River saw a modern-looking, small submarine tied up at the fitting-out quay at Leningrad’s old Sudomekh Submarine Shipyard. It looked as if the submarine had just been launched from the old diesel submarine assembly shed. The assembly shed had seen little activity since the last Foxtrot-class diesel attack submarine had been launched there several years earlier. Naval analysts, following tradition and basing their analysis on previous launch histories, initially classified the submarine as a modern diesel-electric follow-on to a Foxtrot.

Further fitting-out activity, however, soon convinced at least one senior submarine analyst, Herb Lord, that this submarine was an SSN, a nuclear-powered attack submarine. It had a superbly streamlined hull and an overall length of about 79 meters.^[1] Engineering calculations gave it a surfaced displacement of some 2,600 tons,^[2] with a submerged displacement of about 3,700 tons.^[3] Aside from the exceptionally streamlined hull form, this submarine had several other highly unusual features:

In 1969, it was the world's smallest SSN.
It had, a rather high reserve buoyancy—a safety factor—of nearly 30 percent, in contrast to 8 to 11 percent for US SSNs.

The submarine received the NATO classification ALFA Class SSN. Lord, an experienced photointerpreter, alerted others to concentrate their efforts on the ALFA’s construction and fitting-out pattern. The analysts noticed something they had never seen be- fore, a “highly reflective” pressure hull section near the ALFA assembly area.

Lord then requested that he be point of contact for all reports that mentioned “highly reflective” or unusually colored submarine parts. During some eight years of examining photos of Soviet submarine construction yards, analysts assembled a construction history of a magnitude never before accomplished.

Periodically, and with ever increasing frequency, Lord received reports of “highly reflective” pressure hull sections associated with the ALFA fitting out at Sudomekh. Later, he also received reports of highly reflective pieces of hull sections, similar to those of the Sudomekh ALFA, at the Severodvinsk Submarine Construction Yard, far to the north of Leningrad.^[4] He noted that these two yards were connected by an inland waterway, and he wondered whether both yards could be building this rather unusual class of attack submarine.

Lord subsequently conducted what is generally known as “look-back” analysis. All reports of “highly reflective” submarine hull sections at the two construction sites were collated, reviewed, and once again evaluated. It was a formidable, time consuming task. There were reports of changes to the external appearance of the assembly halls; reports dealing with unusual submarine parts at storage sites near the halls; and reports on unusual railroad cars, tank cars, and increased production of titanium sponge. All were scrutinized. It took infinite patience to fit this miscellany into the ALFA submarine assessment. Although it was a most difficult challenge, it was a task in which most intelligence analysts excel.

After reviewing all the evidence and after long discussions with his fellow intelligence analysts, and with naval designers, engineers, and others in the Intelligence Community, Lord became even more convinced that the Soviets were indeed building a “special” type of super submarine, the first made of titanium alloy. Eventually, he concluded that he had to convince the US Navy that the Soviets were series-producing a highly modern, unusual SSN that, if fitted with advanced weapons, could seriously threaten US and allied naval operations.

Some analysts at CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) agreed. In fact. CIA had, as early as 1971, published analysis—Use of Titanium by the Soviet Shipbuilding Industry—that strongly supported the assessment that the otherwise conservative Soviets had conducted serious, long-time research on shaping and welding heavy titanium plates, and that they had in fact developed that capability.

Lord tired to prove that the Soviets had moved from their usual submarine building methods, and that they had combined several advanced technologies in a single class of submarine.

Others were skeptical. They thought that the shaping and welding of heavy titanium hull sections, especially in the generally “dirty” shipyard atmosphere, was impractical, if not impossible. This, too, was a totally reasonable assessment, because titanium cannot be welded when exposed to air; welds have to be shielded, usually by argon gas. The consensus was that the Soviets could weld small parts of titanium, such as those for aircraft or missiles, in hermetically sealed chambers, but that it was impossible to weld huge submarine pressure hull sections.

Lord, however, could not be deterred. For nine years, he would be in the center of the battle over the “titanium submarine.” During the early 1960s, little reliable, high-level scientific and technical information was available, and Lord had to rely heavily on photographic intelligence.

Lord remained certain that the collective evidence overwhelmingly supported his assessment of ALFA’s titanium alloy pressure hull. He tried to convince the US Navy that the Soviets” research and development had advanced to such a degree that they were able to build submarines made of light-weight titanium alloy, and that their SSN would be able to dive deeper than any of our SSNs. In addition, a nonmagnetic titanium submarine would be most difficult to detect.

He tried to prove that the Soviets had moved from their usual submarine building methods, and that they had combined several advanced technologies in a single class of submarine:

A highly advanced, and possibly risky, pressure hull material (titanium alloy).
An as-yet unknown, high-density nuclear power plant (high power concentration in a small hull).
Possible automation to reduce the size of the crew.

It was an entirely unbelievable story.

The assessment was critical for US ship, submarine, and underwater sensor and weapon designers. After almost eight years of debate with Navy decisionmakers, Lord retired. He died a few years later, his enormous research effort never properly recognized by Naval Intelligence.

Phase Two

In a functional reorganization in Naval Intelligence the analysis of foreign submarines was divided into ballistic and cruise missile submarines, and attack diesel and nuclear attack submarines. The attack submarines were my responsibility, and in 1978 I became the ALFA Project Officer.

I agreed completely with Lord’s analysis. Now it became my mission to convince the US Navy that the Soviets were building high-threat submarines using advanced construction technology. Also in 1978, CIA sponsored a meeting of intelligence analysts, naval engineers, metallurgists, and submarine designers to discuss the “enigma” in Soviet submarine construction.

The US submarine community could not accept any possibility that the Soviets could series-produce such a sophisticated submarine.

The great majority agreed that the “highly reflective” parts were submarine components. Most were certain that the components were not of conventional submarine steel. One expert presented several dozen formulae collected from published matter freely available to any serious researcher. He believed these open sources proved conclusively that titanium alloys dissolve in sea water. There were a few who suggested the whole “Sudomekh show” could have been a large-scale “disinformation” program, and that the highly reflective components were just parts covered with aluminum paint.

Many leading metallurgists still believed it probably was impossible for the Soviets to have developed the capability to bend, shape, and weld thick titanium plates in a shipyard environment. The US submarine community, “the Rickover people,” was happy with this assessment. It could not accept any possibility that the Soviets could series-produce such a sophisticated submarine.

These expert opinions made the ALFA submarine assessment inconclusive. On the one hand, I had the expert naysayers; on the other, I had some admirals asking, “What the hell are the Russians doing?”

Lord had rejected aluminum, stainless steel, and glass fibers. There remained the HY80, HY 100, or possibly HY130 steels, and titanium. Except for stainless steel—steel turns a dark, almost black color when exposed to the elements for extended periods. I still agreed with Lord’s analysis that a titanium alloy was the most logical material suitable for submarine pressure hulls.

As analysis continued, I perceived five essential problem areas, which I called “enigmas.” These made life difficult because they challenged traditional beliefs about the very nature of Soviet submarine construction.

First Enigma: An apparent change in Soviet design and construction methodology.

Advantage: Long-range gain.

Disadvantage: Large investment of resources.

Remarks: If successful, Soviet submarine designers and builders were making a quantum leap into modern technology.

Second Enigma: Use of titanium alloy in pressure hull construction.

Advantage: Titanium is stronger and weighs 33 percent less than steel; the pressure hull can be stronger without increasing displacement; its use gives a submarine a stronger hull for greater diving depth and increases resistance to explosives at lesser depths; and the submarine is essentially nonmagnetic, thus decreasing the likelihood of magnetic anomaly detection (MAD).

Disadvantage: Titanium is three to five times more expensive than steel; it needs a totally different manufacturing process; shipyard workers must be retrained; construction halls must be reconfigured; and bending and shaping of heavy plates of titanium alloy are far more difficult compared to steel.

Remarks: Much evidence had been gathered that the Soviet Navy had ample research and development funds and that Soviet metallurgists had made remarkable advances in titanium manufacturing technology. Reports indicated that the Soviet Navy had conducted research in HY 100 steel, aluminum, glass fiber, and titanium alloys for use in ship and submarine construction.

Third Enigma: Apparent use of liquid metal reactor coolants.

Advantage: Better horsepower to weight/volume ratio for higher speed.

Disadvantage: The US Navy believed that a reactor cooled by liquid metal is less safe than the pressurized water reactor (PWR) in use by the US Navy.

Remarks: The US Navy’s safety record supported the PWR approach.

Fourth Enigma: Seemingly large-scale use of automation and reduction of crew size.

Advantage: Reduced the size of the boat and the size of its crew; lessened demand for electric power requirements; and relieved crew from mundane tasks, thus eliminating human errors caused by fatigue and boredom.

Disadvantage: The US Navy believed automated controls to be less safe than hands-on control functions.

Remarks: Only by automating many control functions could the Soviets reduce the size of the submarine. This increased the ALFA’s survivability in combat, because it became a smaller active-sonar target. Furthermore, the low magnetic signature from a nonmagnetic titanium hull made localization of target by MAD difficult. Having unmanned engineering spaces also reduced personnel casualties should the liquid metal reactor malfunction.

Fifth Enigma: Large rescue sphere in ALFA sail indicative of strong concern for crew survivability.

Advantage: Provides safe exit for entire crew from maximum depth without external assistance. When the sphere is on the surface, it becomes a lifeboat; it protects the crew from the elements; and it has sufficient communications, emergency rations, and first aid on board.

Disadvantage: Increases weight of the submarine.

Remarks: The ALFA’s high reserve buoyancy, as well as a sophisticated rescue system, implied Soviet Navy concern for crew survivability. There were other indicators: the Soviet Navy had one India class submarine rescue submarine each in Northern and Pacific fleet areas, had several “hard” compartments in submarines, and now had fitted a sophisticated survival system in the ALFA. This was another item that did not square with our view that the Soviets had little concern for human life.

I believed that different collection assets had to be activated to convince the US Navy of a serious threat to our submarines.

Turning to HUMINT

Since Lord’s ALFA SSN approach had failed, I believed that different collection assets had to be activated to convince the US Navy of a serious threat to our submarines. Under the guidance of an able Navy captain, I used my extensive experience as a HUMINT collector to tap these new assets.

With continuing support from CIA analysts, as well as the Agency's collection managers and collectors, several thousand reports were screened for information about titanium. To keep that collection current, photointerpreters spent considerable time briefing their assets in the technique of precision photography. For three years, I followed the unfolding of this dramatic change in Soviet submarine construction.

A fair number of HUMINT reports dating from the time ALFA was under construction alluded to a new submarine with a small crew. Some reports cited a crew of 15, and others indicated a crew of 18 to 45. Admiral Rickover’s team believed that it was impossible to operate a nuclear submarine with such a small crew, and that it was irresponsible to automate the many vital control functions of a submarine. As a result, this information was temporarily shelved.

But the subjects of small crew and automation would not die, partly because some Western navies had already automated their submarines with considerable success. With strong support from the CIA, I collected and assembled information that supported Lord’s original assessment of ALFA’s small crew.

Periodically, CIA reported that the Soviets maintained a high interest in automating submarine maneuvering, propulsion power train, weapons loading, and fire control functions. The goal: small crew, small boat. Eventually, the evidence that ALFA was extensively automated convinced even the most skeptical.

A Key Report

Evidence continued to confirm Soviet concern with crew survivability. By pure luck, in 1981 someone walking along the Neva River saw a sphere being lowered into the area where an ALFA was being fitted out. Based on the description, analysts determined that the sphere was lowered into the ALFA sail. The source was able to estimate the diameter of the sphere. With that information, and based on my familiarity with West German submarines, I concluded that the Soviets had copied a submarine crew rescue sphere designed by Dr. Ulrich Gabler, the distinguished West German submarine designer.

By extrapolation, our submarine structures engineer calculated that 37 to 39 husky Russians would just fit into the rescue sphere. Careful examination of the sail revealed a continuous breakaway seam in the rubber antisonar coating of the ALFA sail. The assessment: the sphere, using part of the sail as a stabilizer and buoyancy tank, could be released to rise to the surface as a lifeboat. This report contributed significantly to solving the enigmas of crew size, automation, and crew survivability.

Accumulating Evidence

CIA also provided me with increasing evidence that appeared to confirm that:

The Soviets had diverged from their pragmatic submarine construction modus operandi by combining at least three edge-of-technology items into a production-model submarine.
Large, heavy, titanium alloy plates were shaped and welded at the Sudomekh and Severodvinsk shipyards. Almost all reports alluded to the many difficulties encountered when welding titanium.
Liquid metal coolant was used to increase the horsepower over weight/volume ratio and thus to increase speed.

In addition. CIA reported that the first ALFA had suffered a catastrophic failure during sea trials in the Barents Sea, when the liquid metal coolant spilled from the reactor containment vessel into the bilge. Indeed, as later reported in Jane’s Defence Weekly, the “first ALFA suffered a reaction meltdown in 1970.”^[5] The submarine was towed to an isolated corner in Severodvinsk shipyard. Eventually, the bow and amidships sections appeared once again at Sudomekh. The pieces were left in open view on the quay for many years. Nevertheless, the ALFA prototype’s trial run, even with its disastrous aftermath, must have produced some encouraging results because series construction continued.

Renewed Production

In mid-1974, one ALFA was launched from Sudomekh, and in early 1976 one was launched from Severodvinsk. The class was back in series production, and intelligence collection again went into high gear. After more than a year of collection, the results were assembled and examined. The reports confirmed the previous assessments that the Soviets had encountered seemingly insurmountable problems when welding titanium. The first boat of the class had been on the ways for about seven or eight years, instead of the normal one to two years. Fitting-out periods were also much longer than those of other SSNs.

The old and new supporting evidence was presented to another panel of [outside] experts convened by CIA to assess whether the Soviets could weld heavy plates of titanium alloy in a shipyard atmosphere. Again, most of the experts opined that the Soviets most likely could not series-produce titanium pressure hulls for SSNs. But this time, Naval Intelligence, with support from CIA analysts, disagreed with the experts. The mutually supportive evidence from all assets had convinced the technical director of the Naval Intelligence Support Center that the Soviets had made a quantum leap in submarine technology by combining several high-risk options in one class of submarine.

Consequently, it was critical for US Navy decisionmakers to learn that:

The Soviets were building submarines with hulls made of lightweight, nonmagnetic titanium.
The most streamlined hull shape ever produced by the Soviets was designed for speeds over 40 knots.^[6]
These high-technology submarines could dive below the effective range of US antisubmarine weapons.
These units, probably fitted with advanced weapons, posed a serious threat to US and allied naval forces.

The Director of Naval Intelligence, confident that his analysts had made the correct assessment in the face of aggressive opposition, invited me to present the assessment to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. The evidence convinced him, and he decided that the information had to be disseminated to the Navy as soon as possible. Naval Intelligence published the ALFA assessment in record time.

Postscript

In March 1979, technical assets detected the second ALFA making trial runs in the Barents Sea. An analysis of the data indicated that the ALFA had exceeded 40 knots while submerged in moderately deep water. In 1978,^[7] after two decades of effort, the ALFA class had reached initial operational capability and was in series production. (In 1985, the Soviets had at least six operational ALFAs.)

On 19 January 1979, the commander of the US Naval Sea Systems Command wrote Naval Intelligence that CIA’S extraordinary collection and Naval Intelligence’s timely analysis of the ALFA Class SSN threat had saved the Navy $325 million in new torpedo designs. It was the first time in history that this type of intelligence collection and analysis had ever been officially credited with saving such a large sum of money.

Tenacity Pays Off

The R&D and manufacturing efforts for the ALFA SSN are difficult to estimate. Two construction sites were tied up for excessively long times with this project. The first sea trials far exceeded Moscow’s expectations. Then, even with a catastrophic failure in the engineering spaces, the Soviets continued the ALFA project with tenacity unmatched by Western navies.

There is little doubt that the Soviets have incorporated these technological gains in follow-on nuclear powered submarines. After all, the Soviet R&D community, submarine designers, and builders had, at almost prohibitive cost, accomplished what their Western counterparts thought impossible: the production of a titanium submarine that surpassed all others in speed and diving depth.

There was at least one commonalty between the Soviet ALFA construction program and the US Navy’s intelligence effort against the submarine: in tenacity the Soviet Navy had been matched by that of one senior US Naval Intelligence analyst, Herb Lord. We had learned once again that nothing can be taken for granted. Most important, we learned that the Soviet Navy did not always follow old Russian proverbs. We also learned that US intelligence was “right on the money,” and that the Soviets had indeed built a submarine that was “better than good enough.”

Footnotes

[1]Soviet Military Power, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1985.

[2]Understanding Soviet Naval Developments NAVSO P-3560 (Rev. 1/81), 86.

[3]Soviet Military Power, 1990.

[4]Norman Polmar, Naval Institute Proceedings, October 1991: 122.

[5]Jane’s Defence Weekly, 18 April 1987, 715.

[6]Soviet Military Power, 1983.

[7]Soviet Military Power, 1985.

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this article are those of the author. Nothing in the article should be construed as asserting or implying US government endorsement of an article’s factual statements and interpretations.

Historical Document

Posted: Sep 16, 2008 11:17 AM

Poseidon Loss part 3

2009-07-04T14:58:00.002+01:00

From a written discussion in the House of Lords:

House of Lords

Written answers and statements, 24 June 2009

Full profile ...

Lord Astor of Hever (Shadow Minister, Defence; Conservative)

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the status of the wreck of the submarine HMS "Poseidon", sunk after a collision on 9 June 1931 north of Weihaiwei, and of the remains of crew members.

Full profile ...

Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Defence; Labour)

The Ministry of Defence has recently been notified of information on the official website of the Shanghai Salvage Bureau, which states that HMS "Poseidon" was salvaged by Chinese authorities in 1972, although there is no mention of the remains of her crew.

We take matters concerning United Kingdom military maritime graves extremely seriously and are investigating this matter closely. Further details have been requested from the Chinese authorities. When that response is received, the Ministry of Defence will determine what further steps need to be taken.

Poseidon Loss part 2

2009-06-25T09:30:00.001+01:00

More on the illegal salvage of HMS Poseidon from the Daily Telegraph:

Penny Lewis wants the Chinese government to reveal where it buried the remains of her grandfather, Able Seaman Frederick Tolliday, and the Ministry of Defence in London to state whether it was aware the Chinese had raised the submarine in the early 1970s.

Maritime historian Steven Schwankert has been investigating the accidental sinking of HMS Poseidon, off the former British naval base at Weihai, and believes the Chinese salvaged the vessel without telling the British to test the skills of their naval special forces and newly formed underwater recovery units.

"This has come as a huge shock and I'm very upset and angry," said Mrs Lewis, 51, of Stevenage. "My father, Dennis, was his only son and the submarine went down on his third birthday.

"My father was still alive when the Chinese raised the submarine in the 1970s and if he had known it might have helped him deal better with the loss of a father he never knew."

Dennis Tolliday visited the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport shortly before his death in 1985 and saw the memorial to his father's vessel.

"I'm very hurt at what the Chinese have done, but the question now is where my grandfather's grave is and where are his personal belongings," she said.

Mrs Lewis also finds it hard to believe the British authorities knew nothing of the salvage operation, given that Mr Schwankert found references to the operation in a Chinese naval magazine and on the web site of the Shanghai Salvage Bureau.

"It is almost as if the whole affair has been swept under the carpet," she said. "Someone must have known.

"Just because 70 years have passed, that does not reduce the culpability of the people who knew more facts but chose not to provide them to the surviving relatives, who surely had the right to know."

In a statement, a Ministry of Defence official said "The MoD has recently been notified of information which states that HMS Poseidon was salvaged in 1972. We take matters concerning United Kingdom maritime graves very seriously and are investigating this matter. Further details have been requested from the Chinese authorities."

Calls to China's State Council and the National Defence Ministry in Beijing have not been returned.

HMS Poseidon illegally salvaged

2009-06-14T15:16:00.003+01:00

British submarine containing 18 lost sailors

China has been accused of secretly salvaging a sunken British submarine with the remains of 18 dead sailors on board.

By Julian Ryall in Weihai
Published: 6:43PM BST 12 Jun 2009

Capt. Andrew Tate marks the anniversary of the sinking of the H.M.S. Posiden off the coast of China Photo: NICK OTTO

HMS Poseidon sank in 130ft of water on June 9, 1931, after a collision with a Chinese merchant steamer 20 miles north of the British naval base at Weihai.

Relatives and survivors had always thought the vessel remained on the sea bed along with the lost men.

But American historian Steven Schwankert claims the Chinese salvaged the vessel without fanfare in the early 1970s to test the skills of their naval special forces and newly formed underwater recovery units.

He has been investigating the fate of the Poseidon since coming across references to its salvage in an obscure Chinese magazine titled "Modern Ships" in 2005.

He says that while the submarine itself almost certainly went for scrap, there is no indication of what happened to the crew who did not survive.

The suggestion that a Royal Navy vessel containing the remains of its crew has been raised by China without the British government being informed has provoked concern in London and among the relatives of the dead.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the ministry was investigating the reports to try to confirm the fate of the vessel.

Captain Andrew Tate, Royal Navy attache to the British Embassy in Beijing, said: "Clearly if the submarine has been raised we would have expected there to have been some discussion with the United Kingdom and the Ministry of Defence and our concern would be over the bodies that still remained in the submarine."

Calls to China's State Council and the National Defence Ministry in Beijing were not returned.

Grainy photos taken from other Royal Navy ships taking part in the same manoeuvres as HMS Poseidon in 1931 show the helplessness of crews on the surface who are unable to assist their colleagues on the seabed 130ft below.

There are images of the 30 men who managed to scramble into the water before it sank being brought aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes wrapped in blankets and others images showing bubbles from the submarine breaking the surface.

More than three hours after the submarine had settled on the bottom, eight men equipped with the new Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus, a rudimentary underwater breathing system, managed to leave a bow compartment. Two failed to reach the surface and another died later.

More photos from the date of the accident show the subsequent memorial service at sea for the victims and the burial of two men whose bodies were recovered.

Mr Schwankert said he began investigating the fate of the submarine after spotting a description of its salvage in a naval magazine in China.

"I first saw evidence of a salvage in very late 2005," says Schwankert. "Early on, it didn't make sense and, at the time, I didn't think it was possible or that China wouldn't have had the technology to do it.

"The material I saw was published in a magazine that could have been purchased on any news-stand. Anyone could have bought a copy," said Schwankert.

Subsequent research turned up further clues, including a passing mention of operation to recover vessel on the Shanghai Salvage Bureau website.

Schwankert believes the references in little-known sources means that no-one has previously pieced together the puzzle.

The biggest unanswered question is over the remains of the 18 crew who were unable to escape when the submarine, built by Vickers in Barrow in 1929, sank.

"It's a very good question," said Schwankert. "There would almost certainly have been the remains of the 18 crew who died aboard the Poseidon entombed within it at the time of the salvage.

"I feel sure they are buried somewhere near Weihai, but there are at present no indications where."

Schwankert, who is writing a book on his research, does not believe that HMS Poseidon was salvaged in order to learn any technological secrets that it might have contained as Chinese submarines were already based on more advanced Soviet vessels.

George Malcolmson, a historian with the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport, said: "The Chinese obviously knew where the wreck was, so they wanted to recover it for military training.

"As it was in their territorial waters, they clearly didn't feel the need to ask anyone to go ahead and do just that.

"I do not think they will see it as interfering in a war grave and they might say that they brought it up but claim that there were no remains in it."

Relatives of two men who escaped HMS Poseidon were in the city last week to attend a commemoration service, with Capt Tate reading the Submariners' Prayer aboard a vessel off the former Royal Navy base on the island of Liugong.

The relatives later tried to locate the graves of the men whose bodies were recovered but were forced to leave the colony cemetery by Chinese naval personnel.

David Clarke, an IT expert from Lancashire, attended the ceremony close to the spot where his grandfather, Petty Officer Reginald Clarke, was one of those who was in the sunken vessel for three hours before making the perilous ascent to the surface.

"He had nightmares for years afterwards, although he didn't talk about it very much, and he suffered very badly from his exertions deep underwater and the pressure.

"Technically it is a war grave, even though it was not sunk in combat, but the issue of whether it was raised is less important than the question of where the sailors' remains ended up."

Doreen Ridsdale's father, Walter Jeffery, was a Chief Petty Officer Telegraphist aboard the submarine and kept a diary of his 25-year Navy career, including the sinking of his first ship.

"He wrote in the diary that he was told to get out of his radio room and if he had not got that message then he would probably have gone down with the boat," said 77-year-olD Ridsdale, who was born in Leamington Spa but now lives in Prince Rupert, Canada.

"He wrote about the concern he felt about his shipmates as he looked at the spot where the ship had gone down, but I never remember him talking about it to me," she said. Jeffery died in 1978.

"If the Chinese did raise the submarine, what did they do with it and where are the remains of my father's shipmates?" she said. "I wouldn't like to think about how I would feel if it was my father's remains involved."

An interesting selection of photographs showing events after the sinking can be found here:

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/hms_poseidon.htm

The list of those lost is reproduced below:

W.H.H. Pike. E.R.A.
H.J.Bagley. Sto.
C.J. Beaumont. Sto.
G.C.Hewes. A.B.
A.V. Paine. E.R.A.
W.R. Pyne. Sto.
P.T.A. Pointer. Sto.
D. Collings. A.B.
S. Sherrocks D. Sto.
R. Balshaw. Sto.
A.R. Winter. Sto.
R.C. Bowers. A.B.
E.G. Gaines. L. Sto
W. Whitley. Sto.
T.V. Grills. P.O.
P.C. Tolliday. A.B.
H. Cliff. L. Sto.
A. Gray. Sto.
P. Dowling. L. Sea.
A.J. Lovock. A.B.

Typhoon walkabout

2009-04-15T16:54:00.006+01:00

I thought I would post this link as I thought the photographs were very interesting.
http://englishrussia.com/?p=2525#more-2525

There is a possibility that they may one day return to sea,as the following article shows:

Typhoon submarines may sail again

2009-04-15

The world’s biggest nuclear powered submarines, the Typhoon-class, can again be put into ordinary operation. The two submarines Severstal and Arkhangelsk, today in reserve, can in the future be sailing for the Northern fleet.

Of the originally six submarines of the giant Typhoon-class, only one remains operational. This submarine, Dmitry Donskoi, is used as a test platform for the new Bulava sea based intercontinental missiles, as previous reported by BarentsObserver. Three submarines of the class are scrapped.

The two last Typhoon-class submarines, Severstal and Arkhangelsk, remain in reserve at a Belomorsk naval base in Severodvinsk. Now, the debate has started about their future use.

Last week, on April 8th, Sergey Stepashin, the chairman of Russian Accounts Chamber visited Severodvinsk and discussed the future of the remaining Typhoon-class submarines with Nikolai Kalistratov, the director general of Sevmash shipyard, reported by Nuclear.ru.

During his visit to Severodvinsk Stepashin also visited to the nearby Belomorsk naval base where he stayed on board Severstal.

All the Typhoon-class submarines were built at the Sevmash yard in Severodvinsk and the constructors today believe both Arkhangelsk and Severstal can be put into operation in the Northern fleet again.

The 175 meter (574 feet) long and 24,000 tons heavy vessel is the largest nuclear powered submarine ever built. During the Cold War the six Typhoon-class submarines were based at the naval base in Zapadnaya Litsa, only some 50 kilometres from the border to Norway. Three of the six Typhoon-class subs are decommissioned.

I wonder what Commander Linton would have made of a submarine of this size and its destructive capability?
I am still trying to upload the interview of Sid Kay but due to its size of over 1gb it is proving difficult to find somewhere to host it.

Interview with C.P.O.Sid Kay

2009-01-20T11:38:00.002Z

I have recently been sent a copy of an interview with C.P.O.Sid Kay.It was made by the Newport Maritime Trust in the late 1980s.Sid served in Turbulent with Commander Linton from her build at Barrow until Christmas 1942.

According to the "Submarine Service Movement Record Index Card" held on file at the Royal
Navy submarine museum ,Gosport; CPO TGM Sydney Cecil Kay DSM was born 30.7.1903. He joined the Royal Navy as an adult on 30.7.1921. It is probable that he enlisted as a Boy Seaman prior to this date.

Sydney Kay then joined the Submarine Service as a volunteer on 9.11.1928. He served on the following submarines: H31 (1929)

Phoenix (1930-31) L53 (1934), Swordfish (1934) Olympus (1937), L27 (1939), L26 (1939-1940), Seawolf (1941), Turbulent (1941-1942), Sturgeon (1943), P556 (1943), Sealion (1944). He was an instructor at HMS Dolphin in February 1945 and was discharged to pension in August 1945.

His DSM London Gazette 15 September 1942 was awarded in a series of awards to men of HMS Turbulent for four Mediterranean War Patrols and sinking

enemy warships. Notably the sinking of the Italian Destroyer Emanuele Pessagno north west of Benghazi on 29 May 1942.
(Thank you George Malcolmson of the RNSM for supplying the above information.)
I will upload the interview hopefully before the end of January.

Newspaper article

2008-12-21T10:51:00.004Z

I discovered this article on the website of the South Wales Argus ,Newport's local newspaper.

Discovery revives hero's story

Tuesday 3rd July 2007

by Mike Buckingham

A 65-year-old newspaper telling the story of naval hero 'Tubby' Linton VC is like a message winging across the years. Mike Buckingham reports.

A testament to Commander 'Tubby' Linton, Newport's wartime VC ace has surfaced 65 years after the submariner's death in combat.

Mr David Iliffe of Langstone, former chairman of Newport Maritime Trust and a key figure in erecting a memorial to Commander Linton was amazed to stumble across a copy of the Daily Express of May 26, 1943 carrying the front-page story of the submariner's posthumous Victoria Cross.

"I was at a farm sale buying timber when I spotted this seaman's chest on top of which was an old copy of the Express with Tubby's picture looking straight at me" Mr Iliffe said.

"Twenty-odd years ago I was involved in putting up the memorial to him which now stands near Newport's Steel Wave.

"The auctioneers were kind enough to let me have the newspaper.

"There are 300 editions of the newspaper published every year and almost 65 years have passed since the Turbulent was sunk making the chance of that particular newspaper being found 19,500 to one.

"Since most newspapers from 1943 have crumbled to dust the odds of this one surviving are even longer.

"And the chances of somebody who has been connected with Tubby Linton picking it up must be a million to one."

John Wallace Linton was born at Malpas, Newport and joined the submarine service in 1927 and when WW2 broke out was skipper of HM Submarine Pandora.

But it was as captain of the 'T' class boat Turbulent that the daring sailor with the black piratical beard made his name.

When in 1942 the Turbulent was preparing to go out on patrol and it was pointed out to Commander Linton that it was the 13th of the month he retorted "It is an unlucky day - for the enemy".

A strict commander and a perfectionist, Linton gave up playing rugby for the Royal Navy for fear of injuries sustained on the field affecting his performance at sea.

Daring, allied with patience and last-minute timing were the hallmarks of Linton's style.

The old newspaper which carries the Linton VC as it's front-page described his stalking of an enemy convoy in the Mediterranean.

"Having sighting a convoy of merchantmen escorted by two destroyers he worked ahead of he convoy positioning himself to attack as it passed through the moon's rays.

"On bringing his sights to bear he found himself right in the path of a destroyer but nevertheless held his course until the destroyer was almost on top of him before firing."

Commander Linton had another reason to airily dismiss the bad luck associated with the number 13.

In patrols which totalled 254 days at sea the Turbulent had been hunted 13 times and had 250 depth-charges fired at her.

It was the 14th attack in March, 1943 that proved fatal when, off the island of Corsica, the Turbulent was depth-charged and sunk.

Commander Linton's Victoria Cross was awarded for sustained offensive operations which had seen the sinking of one cruiser, one destroyer, one U-boat and 28 merchant vessels totalling 100,000 tons.

Mr Iliffe said he would consider offering the newspaper to the present HMS Turbulent which is a Trafalgar-class vessel based at Devonport.

"There can't be all that many original newspapers telling Tubby's story around. I would like this to go somewhere where it is appreciated" he said.

Mr Doug Piddington, secretary of the Newport branch of the Royal Naval Association which has several ex-submariners within its ranks said "This is a marvellous find. I hope we get the chance to see it.

"It's as though Tubby was speaking to us across the years."

Rememberance Day

2008-11-09T12:06:00.005Z

We will remember them

I have often looked for an opportunity of paying tribute to our submariners.

There is no branch of His Majesty's Forces which in this war has suffered the same proportion of total loss as our submarine service.

It is the most dangerous of all services.

That is perhaps the reason why the First Lord tells me that the entry into it is keenly sought by Officers and Men.

I feel sure the House would wish to testify its gratitude and admiration to our Submariners for their Skill - Courage and Devotion which has proved of inestimable value to the sustenance of Our Country.

Winston Churchill

Reproduced is a list of RN Submarines lost inWorldWar 2 (ctl=constructive total loss)

Year	Atlantic	Europe	Mediterranean	Far East
1939	-	Oxley	-	-
1940	-	Seahorse, Undine, Starfish, Thistle, Tarpon, Sterlet, Unity, Seal, Shark, Salmon, Narwhal, Thames, Spearfish, H.49, Swordfish (total 15)	Odin, Grampus, Orpheus, Phoenix, Oswald, Triad, Rainbow, Regulus, Triton (9)	-
1941	H.31	Snapper, Umpire	Usk, Undaunted, Union, Cachalot, P.32, P.33, Tetrarch, Traveller, Perseus, P.48, Triumph (11)	-
1942	P.514, Unique, Unbeaten		Tempest, P.38, P.39, Pandora, P.36, Upholder, Urge, Olympus, Thorn, Talisman, Utmost, P.222, P.311 (13)	-
1943	P.615	Vandal	Tigris, Turbulent, Thunderbolt, Regent, Splendid, Sahib, Parthian, Saracen, Trooper, Usurper, Simoon (11)	-
1944	-	Graph, Syrtis	Sickle	Stonehenge, Stratagem
1945	-	-	-	Shakespeare (ctl), Porpoise, Terrapin (ctl)

The tale of three Jolly Rogers

2008-10-15T23:20:00.008+01:00

I recently came across a news item on the HMS Turbulent news pages of the Royal Navy website. http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.13519
The item was about the Ceremonial divisions that took place on the 23rd of May 2008 to mark the return of HMS Turbulent to service after a 53 week revalidation and assisted maintenance period.
What attracted me to this story was a photograph of three submarine veterans,a naval officer,a mayor and his wife and a submarine Jolly Roger!
The officer concerned was the Commanding officer of HMS Turbulent (ssn).He had also been present at the commemoration of the loss of HMS Turbulent(1941) in Newport in March of this year and covered in a previous entry.
I had heard from a distant relative of Linton that a Jolly Roger allegedly from the wartime HMS Turbulent had recently appeared. I was therefore intrigued to see a picture of the same officer standing with a Jolly Roger few months later!
I will let the Royal Navy website take up the story:

"Always conscious of their history, the submariners were then treated to a glimpse of one of Turbulent’s predecessors’ Jolly Rogers. London RNA presented the present day Turbulent with a Jolly Roger from the famous World War 2 Turbulent commanded by ‘Tubby’ Linton VC. The story goes that this Jolly Roger was either presented to or purloined by a member of the wartime Turbulent’s crew prior to him leaving the submarine. Unfortunately the submarine was lost with all hands on its next patrol and so this makes the Jolly Roger unique. The intention is that Turbulent will act as custodians until 2011, when it will be handed over to Lord Ashcroft who has been collecting VCs on behalf of the Nation. ‘Tubby’ Linton’s VC is included in his collection and it is only fitting that the VC and Jolly Roger are shown together for all to see."
The reason I have called this post the tale of the three Jolly Rogers is that I have seen photographs of three Jolly Rogers from HMS Turbulent and they are all different!
The baseline reference is a photograph taken with the crew of HMS Turbulent and the Jolly Roger taken in Algiers in 1943 shortly before the submarine was lost.

The next Jolly roger(picture on the left) is a copy made by nurses in Alexandria that was included in a sale of Linton's decorations in 1987.This is an extract from the auctioneer's sale catalogue.The current whereabouts of this Jolly Roger is unknown.
The final image is the one of the Jolly Roger present on HMS Turbulent in1943.The photograph was taken in Algiers in February 1943 and features the crew of the submarine.
All three Jolly Rogers are subtly different firstly the skull and crossbones are different designs on all three flags.
This includes different shape eye sockets,nasal cavities,a mouth and the shape of the bone ends.
The stars for gun actions are a different shape and are in different positions and the guns are better defined on the period photograph.
The"U " has a bar through it in different positions.
The daggers and vehicles and trains are in different positions
The recently discovered flag has only three bars underneath the U whereas the period picture has four.
The original and the replica both have a white seem on the edge the flag is flown from.
The question must be asked,is the newly discovered flag genuine?Unless someone was to do a test on the age of the cloth it is difficult to tell.The Linton family flag is definitely a copy.
The flag in the period picture is obviously genuine,but the new flag may be genuine as well. A submarine would have had a number of Jolly Rogers.They still continue this practice with a public flag and an additional private flag that shows all of the boat's successes many of which may remain secret.However it is quite crudely put together.Perhaps it has been put together at a later date as a memento by a former crew member.I am making enquries about this flag and will post an update if I hear any more.

Happy Birthday

2008-10-15T11:45:00.002+01:00

Today is Commander Linton's birthday.He would have been 103.
The family home at the time of his birth was Claremont House,Malpas.(The house is sometimes referred to as Claresmont)
A picture of the house is reproduced above.It's architecture would appear to be typical of the last days of the Victorian period and it may have been designed and built by the Linton family.The area it is situated in is part of Malpas and would have been very rural at this time.Claremont is now a single street with high density housing east of the Malpas Road,A 4051.
Situated close to the Linton house is St.Joseph's hospital.It is a purpose built, well equipped hospital which has served South Wales since 1946. The hospital is owned and run by the Sisters of St Joseph of Annecy and is a registered charity. The Linton house is now used as accommodation for the nuns who work in the hospital and the hospice.Access to the interior is therefore not available.

Linton relatives

2008-09-29T16:14:00.003+01:00

If you are a relative of Commander JW Linton VC would you please contact me.I am very keen to obtain details of his wife and sons and find some family photographs.I am also keen to hear from anybody else who has an interest in Commander Linton or his submarines. If you can help please leave a comment with your email and I will contact you.

Linton's birthplace and family Part 1

2008-09-03T10:10:00.001+01:00

John Wallace Linton was born in October 1905 in Malpas, Monmouthshire.
The Kelly's directory of Monmouthshire for 1901 describes it as follows:

MALPAS is a parish 1¼ miles north-by-west from Newport railway station, in the Southern division of the county, hundred of Wentloog, Newport petty sessional division, union and county court district, rural deanery of Newport, archdeaconry of Monmouth and diocese of Llandaff. The Hereford and Shrewsbury railway, the Brecon canal and the Abergavenny and Newport road pass through the parish.

There was formerly here a Cluniac monastery forming a cell to the priory of Montacute, in Somersetshire, and founded by Winebald de Balon; at the Dissolution there were two monks, and the revenues amounted to £14 a year: a part of one of the walls, still standing, serves as a boundary to the churchyard.

F. T. E. Prothero esq. is lord of the manor and principal landowner. The soil is clay; subsoil, gravel and rock. The crops are chiefly grass and corn. The area is 974 acres of land, 10 of water, 4 of tidal water and 7 of foreshore; rateable value, £3,781; the population in 1891 was 430.

Linton's paternal grandparents lived in the nearby town of Newport.

NEWPORT is a seaport and market town, the head of a petty sessional division, union and county court district and a parliamentary, municipal and county borough, comprising the old borough and parts of the parishes of St. Woollos, Christchurch, and Nash and Maindee, with a station on the Great Western (South Wales) line, 158½ miles from London by rail and , 48 by road, 23 southwest from Monmouth, 12 north-east! from Cardiff, 17½ south-Nyest from Chepstow, 45 east from Swansea, 44 southwest from Gloucester, 40 southwest from Herelord, in the Southern division of the county, hundred of Wentloog, rural deanery of Newport, archdeaconry of Monmouth and diocese of Llandaff: it is seated on the river Usk, 4 miles from its junction with the river Severn. A stone bridge of five arches, erected in the year 18??, by David Edwards and his two sons, and widened and improved in 1866, crosses the river Usk in a line with the High street and near the old castle. The population of the ecclesiastical districts of Newport in 1891 was 54,707, divided as follows:- St.Woollos, 8,219 (including 345 in the workhouse and 255 in the barracks); St. Paul, 9,127; Holy Trinity, 14,968; St. Mark's, 9.589; St. John the Evangelist, Maindee, 12,744. The town had an extensive dock system and the town had also numerous other industries: There are numerous foundries, steam engine and boiler works, anchor, chain, chain cable, and nail factories, and ship building establishments as well as dry docks for the repair of shipping; railway plant and railway wagons, chemical manures and agricultural implements are manufactured here. There are also glass works at Crindau, pottery works at Pillgwenlly and Crindau, lime works at Lliswery, flour mills, breweries and maltings; bricks are made in the neighbourhood

The Linton family are recorded as living in the area,through the Victorian period but originally came from Creech in Somerset.They had established themselves as builders in the Newport area and were very successful.Linton's grandfather John was a councillor for the North Ward and also was a magistrate.He lived in a comfortable home in Stow Park Circus in Newport.In the 1901 census, Linton's father, Edward Maples,is listed as living at home with the occupation listed as architect.

HMS Courageous

2008-07-24T22:23:00.008+01:00

Visiting an SSN is very difficult.Most navies preserve the secrecy of their submarines and very rarely allow visits,even for withdrawn examples.Here is a film made by two members of the former ship's company of HMS Courageous.She is currently preserved at Devonport but access is very limited.
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1254070074&channel=716591342
(Unfortunately this link is no longer working).If anybody can find the current location for this please let me know.)

The submarine's website can be visited here:http://www.hmscourageous.co.uk/

HMS Astute

2008-07-21T13:59:00.007+01:00

Here are some of my photographs from the Astute roll out day last year.(Click on the photos to enlarge.)
These images are copyright and are not to be copied or used without permission.

Interview with the Admiral

2008-06-09T10:47:00.001+01:00

On the 10th of June I met Vice Admiral Sir Anthony Troup,KCB,DSC and bar , for lunch at his home.The Admiral had served with Linton during 1942 and I was keen to ask him some questions.

We had never met before and he made me feel very welcome.I had established contact with him through our shared membership of the Naval Review and we had exchanged some correspondence prior to the meeting.
Troup had served with Linton from the commissioning of Turbulent at Barrow and up to Linton's last patrol in 1943.I have copies of the patrol reports and will refer to them in future articles.
Troup left the submarine to be sent home to complete his submarine command course(Perisher),and he told me that he felt sad about this as he felt they were all part of a very successful team.He told me that he was asked to report to Linton's cabin and that he thought he must be in trouble for something.He had no idea that Linton had recommended him for the Perisher course.
The Admiral gave me a very good lunch and we talked over what may have happened to Linton and Turbulent, over coffee in his beautiful garden.He had spent many years researching the possible cause of the submarine's loss and he gave me much valuable information.
Whilst searching the internet this morning I came across a reference to him.It was not one I had seen before and I quickly recognised this as his obituary.He passed away yesterday,aged 86.I feel deeply honoured to have met him,as he was the only living naval link to Commander Linton that I am aware of.He had a very successful career in the Royal Navy and was one of the last of the surviving World War Two era submarine commanders.
His obituary can be read here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4294953.ece

RESURGAM

British and Allied Submarine Operations in World War II

2008-05-12T10:41:00.004+01:00

This title was originally published as a two volume limited edition set in 2001.Such was tghe extent of the work that no mainstream publisher would agree to produce it in its entirety.The author would not agree to it being abbreviated and the alternative proved to be self-publishing.The publication was published by the Royal Navy submarine Museum(RNSM).It sold out very quickly and sets now sell for many hundreds of pounds.The author Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet took part in these operations and he has painstakingly produced an accurate and detailed work.
The original book set was divided into two volumes.The first volume contains thirty four chapters and has three hundred and ninety three pages.It details every patrol undertaken,its results,and it sets Allied submarine activity against the prevailing strategic background.
The final chapters include an analysis of the operations and 'Aces,Bags,gongs and the Price'.
The second volume is a book of Appendixes.These include details of the submarine classes,disposition of individual submarines through the war and 'patrolgrams' which record every patrol made by British submarines through the war period.Both volumes have a number of photographs taken from the archives of the Royal navy Submarine Museum.
This set could be called the definitive work on British submarine operations in the Second World War.
Only two hundred sets were produced and they very rarely come up for sale.The British Library has a copy which can be borrowed for reference use only and the RNSM also retained a set.To cater for a continual demand from historians the RNSM republished the set as a CD-rom.This can be purchased from the RNSM gift shop for £39.99.http://www.submarinegifts.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Computer_and_Video_9.html

Submarine handling

2008-05-02T14:01:00.003+01:00

One of the things I quickly discovered whilst researching Submarine history is that virtually nothing is written about modern Submarines.The Royal Navy Submarine community proudly calls itself the Silent Service and with good reason.Their contemporaries in the USN are marginally more open.They publish a quarterly magazine called Underwater Warfare.Occasionally something will creep out and in the article linked to below is a description of how to handle the US Los Angeles class in harbour areas.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/summer_07/summer_07/tips.html