The Silent Deep

by James Jinks

  (vi) Provision of intelligence.

  (c) Cold War and Peace –

  (i) Imposition of expensive A/S defences on potential enemies.

  (ii) Training (Pro submarine and A/S) for war.

  (iii) Flag Showing – in conjunction with other ships displaying offensive naval power.112

  This was a bold vision of the future. As a first step, Woods promoted the submarine over what he regarded as the expensive carrier striking force. He argued that there was a strong case for a ‘strike submarine’, armed with long-range guided missiles such as the American Regulus II and Triton, operating from friendly waters, capable of striking tactical and strategic targets 1500 miles away.113 The ‘strike submarine’ could, he argued, remain on station in times of tension and its relative invulnerability to surprise attacks was a considerable asset compared to fixed installations, bomber bases and carrier task forces which were vulnerable to pre-emptive surprise attacks. Woods also drafted a set of standing orders to supersede the Admiralty’s 1948 directive to hunt and kill enemy submarines. The proposal assigned a whole series of new tasks to the Submarine Service:

  Their Lordships have reviewed the functions of our submarine forces in peace and war in the light of the advances in submarine capabilities made possible by nuclear propulsion, their ability to launch and control guided missiles with nuclear warheads and the development of long range detection equipment. They have decided that the staff requirements, development and training of submarines should be framed to achieve the following main objectives:

  (a) To form part of the forces providing the nuclear deterrent to limited and global war.

  (b) To perform their operational functions in war.

  (c) To provide realistic targets for the development of anti submarine material and tactics.

  In war, the primary operational functions of our submarines will be:-

  (a) The delivery of nuclear weapons to strategical and tactical shore targets.

  (b) The interception and destruction of enemy submarines in enemy controlled waters and in transit areas.

  The relative importance of these two roles will depend on circumstances.

  The other main functions of our submarines, the importance of which will also depend upon circumstances, will be the interception and destruction of enemy warships and merchant shipping, reconnaissance, air/sea rescue and special operations.114

  Woods’s vision of the future would take many years to become a reality. Although the Navy’s Director of Plans, Captain Duncan Lewin (a distinguished naval aviator), agreed that ‘a final decision on the future composition of the submarine fleet is a matter of urgency’, he disagreed with Woods’s proposals on the grounds that if they were implemented they would radically alter the Navy’s future submarine policy. The Director of Plans argued that the nuclear deterrent could best be provided by ‘Strategic Bomber Forces’ and that the submarine should have no part to play in providing or delivering nuclear weapons against strategic targets.115 He also argued that there was ‘no case for the employment of submarines as guided missile carriers against tactical targets such as permanent or temporary submarine bases because should the destruction of these bases become essential then it could be done more economically and more accurately by strategic bomber forces’.116 Instead, Lewin presented a more modest set of requirements for the Submarine Service in global, limited and cold war:

  In global war, setting aside the nuclear exchange, the Russian submarine fleet, which is still expanding in size and potential, poses the biggest single maritime threat to our survival. The submarine can play an important part in the A/S operations required to meet this threat because of its ability to operate unsupported close to enemy bases and on enemy transit routes. In addition, the submarine must provide our surface and air forces with realistic A/S training facilities.

  In limited and cold war our naval forces require mobility and flexibility and this dictates that, for some years, these forces will be centred round the aircraft carrier, which despite its cost and vulnerability, is the only type of vessel that can undertake the multitude of tasks required. D. of P. considers that the submarine’s functions in limited and cold war are offensive operations, reconnaissance, covert operations (in periods of strained relations) and the provision of A/S training facilities.

  D. of P. concludes therefore that the role of the submarine should continue to be: -

  (a) In peace

  (i) To train to perform its operational functions in war.

  (ii) To provide realistic targets for A/S training and for the development of A/S material and tactics.

  (b) In war

  (i) The interception and destruction of enemy submarines in enemy controlled waters and transit areas.

  (ii) The interception and destruction of enemy war and merchant shipping, reconnaissance, air sea rescue and special operations.117

  In terms of guided missiles launched from submarines Lewin recommended that:

  R. N. activity should be restricted to keeping in close touch with U.S. developments. A time may come when considerations of vulnerability or expense may force us to replace the aircraft carrier with the strike submarine … in the foreseeable future however, our meagre financial resources will not be able to stand a venture, even on a meagre scale, into the field of either building or conversion to a guided missile submarine.118

  Undeterred by this opposition, Woods turned his attention to the UK nuclear-propulsion programme. Due to its ‘unexpectedly swift’ progress and the prospect of cooperation with the Americans, he urged Mountbatten to reassemble the February 1956 submarine conference. When it reconvened in October 1956, Woods recommended it reverse previous policy decisions and instead ‘continue the development of nuclear propulsion at maximum intensity, making the best possible use of American experience’. He proposed abandoning any attempt to design an entirely new class of diesel electric submarine, including one based on the US Navy’s ‘Albacore’ hull and argued that the existing ‘Porpoise’ design should be used as the basis for an improved diesel electric submarine, which could be designed cheaply and built quickly to keep the submarine fleet up to strength and bridge the gap until sufficient numbers of nuclear submarines entered service.119

  Mountbatten agreed. The ‘Albacore’ project was effectively abandoned, although he insisted that it ‘should continue to be borne in mind in case surplus design capacity or American help became available’.120 The Admiralty’s design teams started work on an improved version of the ‘Porpoise’ design, what would later become the ‘Oberon’ class.121 The meeting also made two other important decisions concerning the strike submarine and the experimental HTP programme. Mountbatten continued to insist that ‘the strike submarine was a desirable weapon’, but the meeting concluded that it ‘should not be allowed to interfere with the development of the nuclear submarine and the improved PORPOISE and that an ALBACORE with good A/S qualities had a greater claim on any surplus design effort’.122

  The meeting made one other important decision. It terminated all research into alternative forms of submarine propulsion. Design work on recycled diesel engines was discontinued (although an existing recycled diesel design, was retained for possible future use) and the long-running HTP programme, including the proposed operational fleet conceived in 1952, was also brought to a close. The Submarine Service had already learned the hard way the dangers of attempting to harness the volatile hydrogen peroxide in its submarines. At 0325 on 16 June 1955, the ‘S’ class submarine HMS Sidon was alongside a Submarine Depot Ship, HMS Maidstone, in Portland Harbour, preparing to sail on Stage II trials for the new Mark 12 ‘Fancy’ HTP torpedo. While Sidon was alongside HMS Maidstone, members of her crew were in the process of re-loading a torpedo in to one of the torpedo tubes. The stop valve on the torpedo was opened and the starting level accidentally triggered. The torpedo exploded and blew open the submarine’s bow caps, as well as the rear door of the torpedo tube. Some of the torpedo was immediately ejected into t
he sea through the tube, but other components, including carbon dioxide, were ejected into the submarine. Two officers and ten men were killed instantly, six by injuries from the explosion and six from asphyxiation by carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide.

  Eyewitnesses on board HMS Maidstone described watching a sheet of flame shoot up through Sidon’s conning tower, followed by pieces of equipment, furniture and items of clothing such as hats and coats, all of which were flung into the air. As the injured, dazed and partly asphyxiated crew evacuated the submarine through the conning tower hatch (as Sidon was at Harbour stations all other hatches were closed), rescue parties armed with breathing equipment prepared to descend into the submarine. Sidon was full of smoke and debris littered the Control Room, preventing the boarding party from going forward or aft. The explosion caused severe damage to the submarine’s watertight doors and bulkheads, and as water poured into the torpedo compartment the rescue teams realized that Sidon was sinking. They too were forced to evacuate, escaping through the conning tower and after hatch. One of those who had boarded the submarine to help treat the wounded was Surgeon-Lieutenant Charles Rhodes, a doctor from HMS Maidstone who was unfamiliar with the layout of the submarine, as well as how to use the specialist Davis breathing equipment. He died from asphyxiation after helping three casualties escape. Sidon sank at 0850, with a 25-degree list to starboard in 39 feet of water.

  The Board of Inquiry convened to investigate the explosion concluded that the activation of the starting lever caused a pressure build-up, which led a pipe-line to burst, spraying HTP fuel and lubricating oil onto the torpedo. When the volatile HTP came into contact with the torpedo’s metal components, it decomposed into oxygen, gas and steam, which then exploded. The Board concluded that ‘it was humanly impossible for the Ship’s Company … to have prevented the submarine from sinking’ and Sidon’s CO, Lieutenant Commander Hugh Verry, was cleared of any responsibility. The Submarine Service had been very lucky. The Flag Officer Submarines, Rear Admiral Fawkes, wrote in October 1955 that it was ‘widely known that had the explosion taken place at sea, the loss of life would have been much greater and the cause of the explosion or indeed of the accident would probably never have been determined’.123

  The Board of Inquiry recommended that work on the development of the Mark 12 torpedo should be suspended until a number of modifications could be incorporated into its design. However, not long after the accident another Mark 12 exploded at the Arrochar torpedo range in Loch Long, Scotland. ‘The safety problems with HTP are so great that it is an uncomfortable shipmate in a Submarine or, for that matter, in a depot ship,’ complained one naval officer from FOSM’s staff in 1958.124 The torpedo was cancelled, yet another post-war disappointment for the Submarine Service. Work on a replacement known as the Mark 23 ‘Grog’ started in 1955. Based on a wire-guided torpedo known as ‘Mackle’ which had been cancelled in 1956 due to its complexity, the Mark 23 was an anti-submarine, passive homing torpedo, essentially a modified Mark 20 with a wire guidance system inserted between the battery and the after body which allowed an operator on board the firing submarine to listen to hydrophones inside the torpedo, manually steering it towards a target and away from any decoys and countermeasures. The Mark 23 entered service in 1966.

  The two experimental HTP submarines, HMS Explorer and HMS Excalibur, also suffered from considerable problems once they were commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1956 and 1958. Both submarines were designated primarily as anti-submarine targets, but they were rarely used due to the high cost of HTP. HMS Explorer only managed twenty-two hours of exercises during its first commission, while HMS Excalibur only achieved 100 hours.125 They were also unsurprisingly regarded as unsafe. In Explorer, the hydrogen peroxide was fed into a catalyst chamber where oxygen became disassociated from water with a great release of heat. The resulting steam and oxygen were then passed into a combustion chamber where sulphur-free fuel was injected which burnt and considerably raised the temperature. Water was then injected to cool the gas, producing yet more steam, which was then used to drive a turbine. The steam was subsequently condensed in a condenser where carbonic acid was removed and then injected back into the combustion chamber again while the carbonic acid was pumped into the sea. The whole process of starting and running the HTP machinery in Explorer was known as ‘fizzing’ and to the unwary bystander ‘fizzing’ in harbour was ‘like a preview of doomsday’. The sight of exhaust gases, emerging at speed, towered above the submarine in great plumes of grey smoke, and was accompanied by a roar which shook windows a hundred yards away. When Explorer first ‘fizzed’ after joining the 3rd Submarine Squadron at Faslane, HMS Adamant’s officer of the watch was so convinced that the submarine was about to explode that he called out the fire and emergency party and summoned the local fire brigade.

  The volatile HTP could only be stored in containers and passed through pipes made of ‘compatible’ materials such as glass, porcelain, PVC, some forms of rubber, certain types of stainless steel, and, for a limited exposure time, aluminium. It reacted vigorously with incompatible materials, such as mild steel, brass, wood, clothing or human tissue, instantly producing both heat and oxygen – two of the three essentials to establish combustion. On both Explorer and Excalibur the HTP was carried in fifty-four special bags, outside the submarine’s pressure hull. Filling these bags with HTP was a dangerous operation in itself as the bags had a worrying tendency to explode. During sea trials in February 1957, one of Explorer’s HTP bags burst, exploded and flooded much of the HTP system with sea water.126 ‘Any small leak in any of the plastic fuel bags needed a docking to change the whole lot,’ recalled Michael Wilson, one of HMS Explorer’s COs. ‘It was VERY frustrating.’127 Explorer was eventually banished to a small timber jetty a few hundred yards from Adamant and awarded the nickname ‘Exploder’.

  At sea, however, HMS Explorer’s performance was both impressive and complicated. The HTP propulsion machinery gave short periods of very high underwater speeds. The same weight of hydrogen peroxide provided thirty-five times the energy that could be stored in an electric battery. But the HTP machinery suffered from repeated breakdowns and was notoriously unreliable. Those in charge of operating and maintaining it resorted to unusual practices to carefully nurture the equipment. ‘If I, as Engineer Officer, failed to do my usual rounds and make my daily obeisances, the turbines would not perform’ remembered John Pratt (hereafter referred to under his pen name, John Winton), one of the specially trained and highly attuned engineers who served on board HMS Explorer. ‘They would not, in any case, perform on Sundays or holy days; break-downs on those days happened too often to be coincidence. Once, after we had slogged for 36 hours into a raging Atlantic gale, neither turbine would start. Later, I checked and found it was Yom Kippur.’ It sometimes took weeks for Explorer to accept a new operator and superstition was widespread. Some members of the ship’s company were forbidden to move aft of the Control Room bulkhead while Explorer was ‘fizzing’ because of the so-called ‘evil eye’ effect.128 Despite the dangers inherent in operating both Excalibur and Explorer, their crews grew very fond of the two submarines. ‘We did not look upon her as being dangerous. The crew took the bangs and fires as a matter of course,’ recalled another of Explorer’s COs, Commander Christopher Russell.129

  One of the most dangerous incidents on board HMS Explorer occurred on 5 October 1961, off the Mull of Kintyre. Explorer was fizzing on the surface, acting as a target for another, dived submarine. ‘It was the first “fizz” of the day, indeed the first for many days, after lengthy and exhausting repairs,’ wrote Winton. ‘There was much jubilation on the turbine platform when both turbines got under way and settled down to the required r.p.m. with only the minimum of bangs and alarms. It seemed that for once we were going to have a good day.’130 After fifteen minutes’ fizzing, the watch keepers in the Control Room became concerned about the volume of smoke pouring down the conning tower. The First Lieutenant, a new arrival, was standing at the foot of the
tower ladder with painful eyes, struggling to catch his breath. He mistakenly assumed that the smoke was a normal occurrence in Explorer, having heard that anything was possible as far as HTP was concerned.

  As carbon dioxide poured into the submarine the equipment designed to measure the gas content showed such unprecedented results that all three indicators were reported as defective. ‘Looking back now, it does seem that I was extraordinarily slow to take the point which was being hammered in on me from all sides,’ reflected Winton. But he, along with the rest of the crew inside the submarine, was suffering from the effects of carbon dioxide poisoning: headaches, dizziness and nausea. Their judgement and reasoning were also impaired. As he recalled:

  I myself felt perfectly fit, although one or two men around me were screwing up their eyes in concentration and complaining of slight headaches. But there seemed no reason to stop the turbines. It cost our department so many back-breaking man hours to maintain them, and we had to overcome so much ‘bad joss’ to start them, that subconsciously we must all have resisted the idea of stopping the turbines unnecessarily or prematurely.131

  Explorer’s CO was with the Navigating Officer on the bridge, where there was no sign or smell of gas. When he descended into the submarine he found a Control Room that was full of smoke and a number of crew members asking to be relieved. The CO immediately ordered a full stop and evacuated the submarine, and as the crew clambered onto the casing some were very sick. Others lay face down on the casing, their foreheads pressed into their fists. A few just sat, looking bewildered. HMS Explorer was decommissioned in June 1963, followed by HMS Excalibur in May 1964.

  Why did the Royal Navy pursue HTP as a means of propelling its future submarines for so long, and not atomic energy, which we know with hindsight was to prove as revolutionary as the transition from sail to steam? In ideal circumstances it would have followed the US Navy and adequately funded research and experiments into a number of different forms of submarine propulsion. But this was not an option in the immediate post-war period. The country was exhausted from war and financial and material resources were in short supply. Given the choice between atomic energy and HTP propulsion, the choice at the time was clear. The UK’s civil nuclear programme and the Attlee Government’s decision to embark on a largely secret programme to build a British atomic bomb were the immediate post-war priorities. With fissile material in short supply and the United States unable to exchange atomic information without a change in legislation there was only one option open to the Navy. The German HTP programme was already well advanced and the experimental U-boats that had been produced by the end of the war as well as much of the technology, research and technical expertise in the form of German scientists and engineers were there for the taking. Even after the operational problems with HTP became apparent, the Navy rightly continued with Explorer and Excalibur, recognizing that HTP propulsion offered a means of quickly obtaining a submarine that could be used by the surface Navy to develop countermeasures against Soviet submarines of similar capability. As a 1949 Admiralty memorandum noted: