by James Jinks
90. HMS Resolution escorts HMS Vanguard up the Clyde.
91. HMS Tireless and USS Pargo at the North Pole, May 1991.
92. HMS Artful at BAE Systems, Barrow-in-Furness, 17 May 2014. © BAE Systems.
93. Cutaway of an ‘Astute’ class SSN. © Navy News/MOD Crown Copyright.
94. HMS Astute and HMS Ambush at sea. © Crown Copyright.
95. HMS Turbulent departs Faslane for a deployment East of Suez, November 2008. © Ryan Ramsey.
96. HMS Trenchant after a dived transit to Singapore.
97. A Tomahawk cruise missile fired from a ‘Trafalgar’ class SSN.
98. A Tomahawk cruise missile in flight.
99. HMS Vigilant prepares to dive to carry out a test firing of a Trident D5 missile, Cape Canaveral, Florida, 23 October 2012. © MOD Crown Copyright.
100. Commander Mark Lister, CO, HMS Vigilant, 23 October 2012. © MOD Crown Copyright.
101. Lieutenant Commander David O’Connor, WEO, HMS Vigilant, 23 October 2012. © MOD Crown Copyright.
102. A Trident D5 missile reaches into the sky, 23 October 2012. © MOD Crown Copyright.
103. An artist’s impression of the ‘Vanguard’ replacement submarine currently known simply as ‘Successor’. © BAE Systems.
104. HMS Talent off the Isle of Arran. © James Jinks.
105. Commander Hugh Griffiths, CO, HMS Tireless. © Ryan Ramsey.
106. A Perisher student at the periscope of HMS Talent. © James Jinks.
107. A Type 23 frigate as seen through the periscope on board HMS Tireless. © Ryan Ramsey.
108. Lieutenant Commander Louis Bull, Lieutenant Commander Ian Ferguson, Commander Ryan Ramsey, Lieutenant Commander David Burrill and Lieutenant Commander Ben Haskins. © James Jinks.
109. The laid-up submarines at Devonport. © Babcock International.
110. Dreadnought, Churchill and Swiftsure at Rosyth Dockyard. © Babcock International.
111. Resolution, Repulse, Renown and Revenge at Rosyth Dockyard. © Babcock International.
Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be happy to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.
List of Maps
1. SSN areas of responsibility, ‘Operation Corporate’, April 1982
2. HMS Conqueror’s attack on General Belgrano, Operation ‘Corporate’, 1–2 May 1982
3. HMS Splendid tracks the ARA Veinticinco de Mayo, 3–4 May 1982
4. SSN positions, ‘Operation Corporate’, 19–27 May 1982
‘I can call spirits from the vasty deep’
William Shakespeare,
Owen Glendower in King Henry IV Part I
‘The Trade’
They bear, in place of classic names,
Letters and numbers on their skin.
They play their grisly blindfold games
In little boxes made of tin.
Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin,
Sometimes they learn where mines are laid,
Or where the Baltic ice is thin.
That is the custom of ‘The Trade.’
Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.
They seldom tow their targets in.
They follow certain secret aims
Down under, far from strife or din.
When they are ready to begin
No flag is flown, no fuss is made
More than the shearing of a pin.
That is the custom of ‘The Trade.’
The Scout’s quadruple funnel flames
A mark from Sweden to the Swin,
The Cruiser’s thund’rous screw proclaims
Her comings out and goings in:
But only whiffs of paraffin
Or creamy rings that fizz and fade
Show where the one-eyed Death has been
That is the custom of ‘The Trade.’
Their feats, their fortunes and their fames
Are hidden from their nearest kin;
No eager public backs or blames,
No journal prints the yarn they spin
(The Censor would not let it in!)
When they return from run or raid.
Unheard they work, unseen they win.
That is the custom of ‘The Trade.’
Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Trade’, Sea Warfare, 1914–18
Preface
Submarine Britain
From the very beginning at the start of the twentieth century there has been something special and mysterious about ‘Submarine Britain’. In its time, it has stretched from the North Pole to the South Atlantic, the Far East to the Barents Sea. Scarcely a patch of the two thirds of the world’s surface that is covered in water has escaped the presence of a Royal Navy submarine at some point over the last century. At home, too, the United Kingdom is girdled with the harbours, facilities, design offices, factories and research laboratories needed to keep the country at the top of the range of the world’s submarine powers. Yet for all the mystique and fascination submarine life holds for many people and the political heat generated by the question of whether or not the UK should remain a nuclear-weapons power, very little of this human and physical infrastructure is known to the general public. Both the ‘vasty deep’ and the land life of the Queen’s underwater servants remains very largely a mystery to their fellow countrymen and women.
For 114 years since the first tiny submarine ordered by the Royal Navy was launched at the Vickers Yard, Barrow, on the North Lancashire coast on 2 October 1901, successive British governments have sought to have a presence in the depths of the seas. In this task, the Royal Navy Submarine Service has been their instrument. Yet this famously ‘silent service’ has never fully gained the place it deserves in the wider historical sun of defence policy, intelligence history or the record of the UK as a nuclear-weapons power. To this day, the Ministry of Defence still responds to all enquiries about submarine operations – past and present – with a simple phrase: ‘The Ministry of Defence does not comment on submarine operations.’
In recent years a series of unofficial books have sought to shed a glimmer of light on the ‘deep Cold War’ between the United States Navy, the Royal Navy and the Soviet Union. There are two opposing views on revealing these activities, many of which remain some of the most closely held secrets of the British State. Those who favour declassification believe that because the Cold War ended over twenty-five years ago, submariners now deserve more formal recognition and that because there have been so many leaks any such secrecy has long since gone. The contrary view is that submarines of the former Soviet Union, as well as those of other nations, are still at sea, and nothing should be revealed that could jeopardize current and future submarine operations, many of which still involve tactics developed and perfected during the Cold War. The potential threat is still present. The 2013/14 edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships lists seventeen operational nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) in service with the Russian Northern Fleet, and a further seven more in the Pacific Fleet. The US Atlantic Fleet has twenty-three SSNs, France has four, China five, and India two. All deploy nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), armed with nuclear warheads. All have active building programmes.
Today the Royal Navy has just seven SSNs and four SSBNs. On present policies, Britain will remain a submarine nation at least until the 2050s, when the ‘Successor’ system to the Trident SSBNs as the sole carrier of Britain’s nuclear-weapons capability will require replacing, as will the SSNs that protect them. The country will therefore still need small groups of carefully trained young men (and, since 2013, young women) to go silently and deeply into the cold, their lives shaped equally by intimacy and solitariness, in one of the strangest and most singular professions a British citizen can pursue. Their world spans the front line of national defence (surveillance and intelligence gathering) to the last line (nuclear retaliation as the country’s near unthin
kable ‘last resort’).
Like all secret services, the submariners have their crown jewels that cannot and should not be given up. Yet has the silent service been silent for too long? Is there a means of highlighting the Submarine Service’s contribution to the Cold War, without jeopardizing national security? We believe there is. The Silent Deep is not an official history or an authorized history, but it has been prepared with a high level of cooperation from the Royal Navy, for which we are immensely grateful. This cooperation took the form of unprecedented access to documents, personnel and submarines, both operational and decommissioned, all of which has been used to reveal for the first time in significant detail the activities of the Submarine Service since the end of the Second World War.
For all that we have been able to write about, The Silent Deep is not a complete history. Many of the files held by the Ministry of Defence, even those covering operations that occurred over fifty years ago, are still too sensitive to release as they show to a high level of detail how certain submarine operations were carried out. Given that these techniques are broadly still used today they would be of great use to any adversary. We hope that this book gives ‘Submarine Britain’ as much of the visibility as it can safely acquire and that it manages to convey something of the flavour of the lives lived by those who penetrate the silent deep.
Peter Hennessy and James Jinks, June 2015
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in the text:
ABJSM – Admiralty British Joint Service Mission Washington
ABM – Anti-Ballistic Missile
ACCHAN – Allied Command Channel
ACINT – Acoustic Intelligence
ACNS – Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff
AEC – United States Atomic Energy Commission
AERE – Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell
AGI – Soviet Auxiliary General Intelligence
AMP – Assisted Maintenance Period
ANF – Atlantic Nuclear Force
ARS – Auxiliary Rescue Ship
ASDIC – Anti-Submarine Detection Investigation Committee
ASW – Anti-Submarine Warfare
AUTEC – Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center
AUWE – Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment
AWRE – Atomic Weapons Research Establishment
BAE – British Aerospace
BIBS – Built-in Breathing System
BNBMS – British Naval Ballistic Missile System
BNDSG – British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group
BUTEC – British Underwater Test and Evaluation Centre
CAD – Computer-Aided Design
CASD – Continuous at-Sea Deterrence
CDS – Chief of the Defence Staff
CEP – Contact Evaluation Plot
CINCFLEET – Commander-in-Chief Fleet
CINCNELM – Commander-in-Chief US Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean
CINCWF – Commander-in-Chief Western Fleet
CND – Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
CNO – Chief of Naval Operations
CO – Commanding Officer
COMINT – Communications Intelligence
COMOPS – UK Commander Maritime Operations
COMSUBEASTLANT – Commander Submarine Force, Eastern Atlantic
COMSUBLANT – Commander Submarine Force, Atlantic
COMSUBRON – US Navy, Commander, Submarine Squadron
CONMAROPS – Concept of Maritime Operations
CSA – Clear Stern Arcs
COR – Coded Order
CSSE – Chief Strategic Systems Executive
CTF – Commander Task Force
CTG – Commander Task Group
DASO – Demonstration and Shakedown Operation
DCA – Tactical Data Handling System
DIMUS – Digital Multi-beam Sonar
DIS – Defence Intelligence Staff
DOPC – Defence and Overseas Policy Committee
EASTLANT – Eastern Atlantic
EEC – European Economic Community
ELINT – Electronic Intelligence
EOP – Emergency Operating Procedure
ESM – Electronic Support Measures
EST – Eastern Standard Time
FOF1 – Flag Officer First Flotilla
FOSM – Flag Officer Submarines
GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters
GIUK – Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom
HE – Hydrophone Effect
HF – High Frequency
HMCS – His/Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship
HMS – His/Her Majesty’s Ship
HMS/m – His/Her Majesty’s Submarine
HMUDE – Her Majesty’s Underwater Detection Establishment
HTP – Hydrogen Peroxide
HUMINT – Human Intelligence
IBERLANT – Allied Forces Iberian Atlantic Area
ICEX – Ice Exercise
IRBM – Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile
ISTAR – Intelligence Surveillance Tracking and Reconnaissance
IUSS – Integrated Undersea Surveillance System
JCAE – Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
JIC – Joint Intelligence Committee
JSTG – Joint Steering Task Group
LASS – Launch Area Support Ship
LEM – Leading Electrical Mechanic
LIFEX – Life Extension Programme
LOFAR – Low-Frequency Array
LOP(R) – Long Overhaul Period and Refuel
LRMP – Long-Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft
MAIB – Marine Accident Investigation Board
MDA – 1958 US/UK Mutual Defence Agreement
MEZ – Maritime Exclusion Zone
MIRV – Multiple Independently Targeted Re-Entry Vehicle
MLF – Multilateral Nuclear Force
MOD – UK Ministry of Defence
NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NIF – US National Ignition Facility
NM – Nautical Mile
NOFORN – Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals
NOPF – Naval Oceanographic Processing Facilities
NOTC – Nuclear Operations Targeting Centre
NOTU – Naval Ordnance Test Unit
OD(SA) – Overseas and Defence (South Atlantic) Committee of the Cabinet
OOW – Officer of the Watch
OPDC – Oversea Policy and Defence Committee of the Cabinet
ORAC – Operation Relentless Assurance Committee
PAC – Penetration Aid Carrier
PINDAR – UK Defence Crisis Management Centre
PM – Prime Minister
PSA – Polaris Sales Agreement
PSPJ – Pre-Swirl Pump Jet
PWR – Pressurized Water Reactor
QT35 – Quenched and Tempered Steel 35
RABA – Rechargeable Air Breathing Apparatus
RAF – Royal Air Force
RAM – Regulus Attack Missile
RAN – Royal Australian Navy
RCNC – Royal Corps of Naval Constructors
ROE – Rules of Engagement
RNSH – Royal Navy Sub Harpoon
SACEUR – Supreme Allied Commander Europe
SACLANT – Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic
SALT – Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
SAS – Special Air Service
SBS – Special Boat Service
SCOG – Self-Contained Oxygen Generator
SCOSE – Standing Committee on Submarine Escape
SDR – Strategic Defence Review
SDSR – Strategic Defence and Security Review
SHAPE – Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
SIGINT – Signals Intelligence
SLAM – Submarine-Launched Air-Flight Missile
SLBM – Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile
SLCM – Submarine-Launched Cruise Missile
SLOCS – S
ea Lines of Communication
SMCS – Submarine Command System
SMP – Short Maintenance Period
SNCP – Special Naval Collection Programme
SOA – Speed of Advance
SONAR – Sound Navigation and Ranging
SOSUS – Sound Surveillance System
SP – Special Projects
SPA – SOSUS Probability Area
SPO – US Special Projects Office
SPRN – Special Projects Royal Navy
SSBN – Nuclear-Powered Ballistic Missile Submarine
SSGN – Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile Submarine
SSGW – Surface-to-Surface Guided Weapon
SSIXS – Submarine Satellite Information Exchange System
SSK – Conventional Submarine
SSN – Nuclear-Powered Attack Submarine
SSPO – Strategic Systems Project Office
STRATCOM – United States Strategic Command
SUBICEX – Submarine Ice Exercise
SUBROC – Submarine Rocket
SURTASS – Surveillance Towed-Array Sensor System
SWFLANT – US Navy Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic
S3W – Submarine 3rd Generation Westinghouse
S5W – Submarine 5th Generation Westinghouse
SWS – Strategic Weapons System
TEZ – Total Exclusion Zone
TF – Task Force
TLAM – Tomahawk Land Attack Missile
TML – Twelve-Mile Limit
TWCS – Tomahawk Weapons Control System
UHF – Ultra-High Frequency
UK – United Kingdom
USA – United States
USN – United States Navy
USS – United States Ship
USSR – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
VCNS – Vice Chief of the Naval Staff
VHF – Very High Frequency
VLF – Very Low Frequency
VSEL – Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd
WEO – Weapons Engineering Officer
XO – Executive Officer
Introduction
It’s an extraordinarily attractive career. You endure hours of boredom waiting for those few minutes where you do something of real value for the Crown. More than anything it’s the company you keep. We all come home or none of us come home.
Rear Admiral Simon Lister, Director Submarines, 20 December 2011.1