Richard Humphreys - Under Pressure: Living Life and Avoiding Death on a Nuclear Submarine

Names of Royal Navy personnel have been changed to protect privacy.

Mudlark

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First published by Mudlark 2019

FIRST EDITION

Text Richard Humphreys 2019

Illustrations Tom Hughes 2019

Cover layout design HarperCollinsPublishers

Cover illustration Neil Gower

Photographs courtesy of the author except where indicated

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Richard Humphreys asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008313050

Ebook Edition September 2019 ISBN: 9780008313081

Version: 2019-09-03

For my father, who loved life

V.J.C.H.

19282016

Submariners themselves were regarded as not quite the thing smelt a bit, behaved not too well, drank too much. They were regarded as a sort of dirty habit in tins.

Admiral Sir John Forster Sandy Woodward, One Hundred Days, 1992

I switched off the radio, made my way slowly up the stairs, shut the bathroom door and shed a tear. It was 16 November 2017, the day after the Argentinian submarine the ARA San Juan went missing in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina. At first, in those early days, it was unclear what had provoked the accident or what fate had befallen the crew, whether they might somehow still be alive beneath the waves. But then, with time, the cause of the tragedy became clear. An electrical malfunction had short-circuited the battery, which led to a complete loss of power for the old diesel-powered submarine. The San Juan had then sunk to the ocean depths, before finally imploding under the intense water pressure. The entire crew of 44, which included the first female submarine officer in the Argentine Navy, Eliana Krawczyk, had perished.

On hearing of the crews horrible fate, my thoughts switched back to my own period of service aboard a submarine and how blessed Id been not to have suffered a similar fate. There are innumerable fine lines between life and death when operating in one of the most testing environments the world has to offer, where one wrong move can almost instantly bring chaos and disaster. After the San Juan tragedy, friends who had previously never seemed the slightest bit interested in my naval career started pumping me vigorously with questions about submarines, the dangers involved in underwater living, and exactly how I retained my sanity during the long weeks and months away at sea, cut off from the rest of the world. This book is a direct result of those conversations.

At the age of 18, in the mid-1980s, I became a member of an elite group who served aboard Britains nuclear deterrent, continuing my service for the following five years, while the Cold War was still hot and nuclear confrontation seemed scarily imaginable. In the 30 years since I left the Navy, submarine living and operating have remained fundamentally the same, although the creature comforts including email, laptops, PlayStations and other products of the digital age mean that some aspects are possibly easier now than they were during our stand-off with the Soviet Union.

I hope that what you are about to read will go a little way towards explaining the raw, real-life experience of what its like to spend prolonged periods of time on a submarine. Ive tried not to focus on the military aspects, although by necessity some of these will come into the story, but have rather concentrated on how it feels to live day-to-day in this claustrophobic, man-made environment, describing the pressures it exerts on both ones mind and body.

This is a book about life lived at the extremes, and there are few more extreme situations than living underwater in what is effectively a giant, elongated if beautifully streamlined steel tin can. I hope that it informs, shocks, excites and entertains, and that it moves you, the reader, to spare a thought for the brave men and women who at any given moment are patrolling the worlds waters, keeping their silent vigils.

The ID card issued to me on joining HMS Resolution. Im going for a Mick Jones from the Clash vibe.

Terminology

alongside: status of submarine when berthed at jetty, in Resolutions case at Faslane, awaiting to go to sea for patrol or work-up. Also where ship maintenance, storing ship, and loading both missiles and torpedoes at Coulport take place.

AMS (auxiliary machinery space): three areas on the submarine AMS 1, 2 and 3 where various bits of machinery are located.

angles and dangles: deep-water procedure where submarine dives and heads back to surface at steep inclines to test if boat is safely stowed for sea. Any noise generated by falling pots, pans or bits of machinery could give boats position away on patrol. Great fun.

ARL (Admiralty Research Laboratory) table: located aft and on starboard side of control room. Mostly used when surfaced. Map lies on top of it and periscope navigational fixes taken from landmarks are applied to chart to calculate submarines position in conjunction with SINS.

attack team: warfare team under guidance of XO reporting to captain, who has overall command. Consists of sonar team, tactical systems team, warfare seaman officers, XO and captain.

auxiliary vent-and-blow system: back-up vent-and-blow system in case of failure of main systems. May be used for diving and surfacing of submarine.

bathythermograph: instrument to measure changes in water temperature at different depths. Also used to measure velocity of sound in water. Sensors located in top of fin and keel.

BRN mast: supplies submarine with instantaneous navigation information to lock down its latitude and longitude at PD.

bubble: up bubble means bow of submarine is angled up; down bubble, bow angled down; zero bubble, boat kept steady on depth. Controlled by afterplanesman.

casing: outer non-watertight upper hull of submarine, designed for hydrodynamic performance. Pressure hull is the inner hull.

CEP (contact evaluation plot): time-bearing plot constantly in operation on patrol where every sonar contact is plotted so its course, range and speed can be calculated for firing solution or to avoid collision.

control room: centre of operations, where captain commands submarine and planesmen manoeuvre, surface, dive, and go to and from PD using ship control console. Houses attack and search periscopes, attack team fire-control and plotting systems. Systems console located here, which controls ballast and trim pumps, hover pump and periscopes. Slop, drain and sewage tank is blown here and hydraulic system monitored.