Gallop - Subsmash: the mysterious disappearance of HM submarine Affray

Front Cover Illustrations: HMS Affray photographed from the starboard bow before leaving for Australia in October 1946, copyright of Wright and Logan, Royal Navy Submarine Museum (top). Members of HMS Affrays crew in its engine room, Crown copyright (bottom).

First published in 2011

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL 5 2 QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2011

All rights reserved

Alan Gallop, 2007, 2011

The right of Alan Gallop, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 7296 6

MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 7295 9

Original typesetting by The History Press

This book is dedicated to the seventy-five brave officers and ratings who sailed in HMS Affray on Exercise Training Spring on Monday 16 April 1951 and never returned

Diagram

Annotated profile of HMS Affray, Acheron Class Large Patrol

Few people today have heard of HMS Affray, the Royal Navys A class submarine which made its way out into the English Channel in April 1951 with seventy-five officers and ratings on board, dived and never again returned to the surface. And why should they have? Affray was the last British submarine to be lost at sea and she dived for the final time nearly sixty years ago, triggering the largest military sea-air search ever mounted in this country before, or since.

But there are sufficient numbers of people still alive who do remember the mysterious disappearance of the Affray and for some of them the memory still hurts and haunts. After all this time they still ask questions, answers to which have never been satisfactorily provided.

They ask: what really happened to Affray? What prevented her from resurfacing after she dived on the evening of 16 April 1951? Why were so many men summoned to join the submarine and then sent ashore again minutes before she sailed? What might have happened to her once she had disappeared beneath the waves? Was the submarine in a fit state to sail? Was she overcrowded? Was her crew experienced enough? Were there spies on board?

Perhaps there are no answers to these questions, but this book sets out to tell the true and in-depth story of Affray for the first time, throw new light on many issues surrounding her last cruise and offer suggestions about what may or may not have happened to her. To do this, I have been fortunate to have enjoyed the co-operation of four people who lost a husband, father or brother on the submarine and others who either participated or observed the attempts to find and rescue her.

Experienced submariners including a respected submarine commander have also kindly provided me with their own professional perspectives, and a technical deep-sea diver describes what the vessel looked like sitting on the sea bed half a century or so after she went missing (and before diving was banned on underwater military graves).

There are many questions that could not be answered in 1951 because the technology needed had not been invented at that time. But it does exist today. When an underwater television camera was lowered into the sea for the first time from the deck of HMS