by James Jinks
UNDER THE ICE
The Americans recognized this danger early on and after the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the US Navy sent the USS Nautilus underneath the Arctic ice cap, where, in 1958, she became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole.38 In 1960, the USS Sargo managed to pass the Bering Strait and the USS Seadragon the Davis Strait; in 1962, the USS Skate traversed the Northwest Passage and rendezvoused with USS Seadragon at the North Pole. But from 1962 until 1969, US nuclear-powered submarines largely avoided the Arctic ice pack due to safety concerns brought on as a result of the loss of the USS Thresher, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean in April 1963 with the loss of all 129 men on board.39 However, the results of these early research trips were incorporated in the new US ‘Sturgeon’ class nuclear attack submarines, which could operate year round in the Arctic.40 The Soviets, too, had taken their first steps in the Arctic. In 1962, the Soviet ‘November’ class nuclear submarine K-21 made the first Russian Arctic voyage, firing four torpedoes to create a hole in the ice through which it surfaced. On 17 July 1962, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-3 surfaced at the North Pole, and in September 1963 the Soviet ballistic-missile submarine K-178 travelled from the Pacific Ocean across the Arctic to the Northern Fleet, completing a total of 167 miles submerged under the ice.41
The Royal Navy’s knowledge of under-ice operations in high latitudes was limited and primarily restricted to two sources: small amounts of second-hand information from the US – the use of which was limited due to differences in submarine and equipment design – and the Royal Navy’s own patrol reports from conventionally powered submarines, many of which had conducted operations up to the ice edge. In March 1963, the ‘Oberon’ class submarine HMS Opossum and the ‘Porpoise’ class submarine HMS Finwhale took part in Exercise ‘Portent’ to obtain experience operating in fringe ice, under ice and close to the ice edge. Opossum’s CO, Lieutenant Commander W. L. Owen, was ‘Struck by the way in which conditions at the edge of the Arctic ice-pack can change from year to year, from month to month, and even from day to day.’ As Owen took Opossum 600 miles from Jan Mayen to Spitsbergen he was surprised at how much the ice edge changed and ‘its position was found, in places, to be more than 100 miles from the “assumed boundary” shown on the Meteorological Office Ice Chart of only two weeks previously’.42
Owen was forced to conclude that ‘the ice edge is an unfavourable area for transiting by a battery-powered submarine in war’.43 SSKs faced a number of operational difficulties operating under the ice: their speed was comparatively slow and they had to operate mainly on the surface as snorting was unacceptable due to the risk of losing a mast or even propellers on a block of ice. But operating on the surface was also challenging. At night the submarine ran the risk of damaging its torpedo tube shutters as in very rough weather and even in daylight, blocks of ice were almost impossible to see. The risk of visual or radar detection from the air was also high and Owen recommended ‘deploying battery powered SSKs in other areas, where they would be more likely to encounter non-nuclear targets, and to restrict ice edge deployment to SSK(N)’s’.44
In December 1970, the then FOSM, Sir John Roxburgh, concluded that it was ‘Of considerable importance that we should extend our knowledge of the problems associated with operating under ice with a view to re-designing equipment if necessary. This knowledge,’ he wrote, ‘will be of major benefit to Commanding Officers who may be called upon to detect an enemy in, or follow him into, this environment.’45 Roxburgh proposed that HMS Dreadnought should carry out a short Arctic patrol in the spring of 1971, codenamed Exercise ‘Sniff’. Dreadnought would be accompanied by the ‘Oberon’ class submarine HMS Oracle. Planning and preparation were compressed into a very short timescale as a trip in February/March provided the right balance between availability of daylight and the southerly movement of the ice. But those months were also when winter in the Arctic was at its most severe, with regard both to the amount of ice present and to the temperatures likely to be experienced on the surface. Extensive preparations were put in hand and Dreadnought’s CO, Commander Alan Kennedy, and his Navigating Officer travelled to the US to discuss under-ice operations.
Crossing the Arctic Circle at 1300 on 22 February 1971, Dreadnought rendezvoused with HMS Oracle and on 23 February both submarines moved towards the ice pack, where the sea water temperature dropped to 29.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Dreadnought and Oracle then spent two frustrating days trying to find the ice edge. Once they did so Oracle became separated and Dreadnought spent ten hours trying to relocate her. At 1630 both submarines rendezvoused again and carried out an exercise to detect each other under the ice, which Kennedy described as ‘a complete failure’. Dreadnought’s sonar was ‘swamped with ice contacts’ and was unable to locate Oracle. The two submarines then went their separate ways with Oracle withdrawing to the ice edge for independent trials, while Kennedy took Dreadnought north. Dreadnought spent the next few days under the ice until 1042 on the morning of 28 February, when Kennedy identified what looked like a suitable area for surfacing through the ice. He took Dreadnought to diving stations and attempted to bring the submarine into a stationary hovering position just beneath the ice. However, the first attempt to surface was a failure and Dreadnought ‘sank to the depths’. Kennedy decided to try again and positioned Dreadnought in a hover underneath a thin layer of ice, varying the ascent of the submarine between 10 and 15 feet per minute. He wrote how:
At 220 feet, I raise the periscope and see a fantastic view of the edge of the Polynya [an area of unfrozen sea within the ice pack] with one small crack of water showing. The submarine is moving slightly relative to the ice. This is corrected by a kick astern and the ascent continues. At 1129 with a rate of ascent of 15 feet per minute the fin touches the ice and fails to break through. Gentle blowing with the two main vents open, moves the submarine up a fraction. More short blows with the vents shut breaks the submarine through. Further blowing lifts the submarine to 39½ feet and the upper lid is opened. After confirmation … that the top of the fin is clear the search periscope is raised to reveal the beautiful arctic day with the sun just above the horizon. We are in a frozen lead which conforms to the shape plotted prior to surfacing. Full surfaced arctic routine is instituted.46
As Dreadnought’s crew packed onto the submarine’s casing they were confronted with an air temperature of −13 degrees Fahrenheit. After a few minutes on the surface, Dreadnought began to list again, this time by up to 2¾ degrees to starboard. Kennedy had been aiming for a bigger area of ice, but had inadvertently surfaced Dreadnought in a smaller skylight that was just over the length of the submarine and only around 100 yards wide. A small ridge of ice separated the two skylights and as the ice began to move Dreadnought came perilously close to the thicker ice. After three and a half hours on the surface, its Search Periscope had frozen and could not be rotated. Fearing damage to the hydroplanes, Kennedy noted that ‘we may have to move shortly’:47
In retrospect I obviously should have continued to the larger of the two areas but one can never be certain of returning to the same point. The penalty for this soon becomes obvious as the noise of ice movement can be heard until the list on the submarine increases. At 1330 I consider we must get out of this place and the sooner the better. The dive commences at 1346 by which time the list has increased to 6°. The main difficulty is breaking the bows free. By 1348 the fin is just about under but we have a bow up angle of 7½ degrees. The angle is reduced slightly by a half second blow in the after main ballast group and a thousand gallons of water is flooded into ‘D’ tank. I am reluctant to put any more weight in or else when we drop clear we will go like a stone. It seems likely that we will slowly come out. The main requirement is patience.48
Ten minutes later, Kennedy’s patience was rewarded and Dreadnought passed 110 feet, eventually levelling off at 250 feet. The submarine continued north, surfacing again the next day for eight hours, before diving and heading towards the pole.
The 120 miles to the Po
le were beneath some of the thickest polar ice that Dreadnought’s crew had ever seen and Kennedy was ‘not too hopeful of finding somewhere to surface’. At 0800 the submarine passed under the Pole and immediately turned back south on the 175°W meridian, searching for an area to surface. At 0855 Dreadnought’s crew identified what looked like a small area of thin ice and Kennedy attempted to surface, but the attempt failed after heavy ice drifted over Dreadnought. Kennedy attempted to bring Dreadnought to the surface on two further occasions, but both failed. ‘It looks as if we are not going to be able to get up,’ wrote Kennedy at 1230, ‘a great disappointment felt by all on board.’ But Kennedy was determined to surface at the Pole if he possibly could. ‘I decide to have one more go by going round in a square of 7 miles,’ wrote Kennedy. ‘Having got this organised I turn in, in a pessimistic frame of mind.’ As Dreadnought moved forward a large stretch of thin ice appeared and Kennedy decided to try and surface again:
The submarine is positioned and an ascent commences, again made more difficult by the echo sounder reporting thick ice over the fin but not on the bows or the stern. This seems unlikely as we had no evidence of thick ice on the final approach. We continue upwards and I am unable to see any light through the ice before putting the periscope down at 100 feet. The fin touches at 68 feet and stops at 67 which is again odd, since the top of our fin is at a keel depth of 58 feet. The situation looks much more rosy on the radial gauges and I decide to blow. A short blow on 2, 3, 4 and 5 Main Ballast and the fin breaks through at 1718.49
Dreadnought surfaced four miles from the North Pole. The ice was so thick that only the submarine’s fin broke through the ice. ‘The view is quite breathtaking in the half light of an arctic dawn,’ wrote Kennedy, ‘with great blocks of ice lying against the side of the fin where they have had to be pushed off the top of the fin by the surfacing OOW [Officer of the Watch].’ ‘Sniff’ was an appropriate name for the exercise. It was, Kennedy wrote, ‘breathtakingly cold’, −38 degrees Fahrenheit.50 Dreadnought remained on the surface for nine hours, while the majority of the crew went out on to the ice to play football and take photographs. Most were awed by the spectacle. Photography was very difficult. It was pitch dark and so cold that the camera shutters froze.
After nine hours on the surface Dreadnought dived and after surfacing on two occasions altered course to pass beneath the Pole again before steering south down the Greenwich meridian on a course back to Faslane. On the return passage strange noises, a scraping along the hull followed by one loud clang, were heard in the Control Room and the submarine became increasingly difficult to handle, and the helmsman struggled to keep Dreadnought from steering to starboard. When Dreadnought arrived in Faslane at 0900 on 11 March, Kennedy trimmed the submarine so that the propeller was just visible outside of the water. As it slowly rotated a small bend on one of the blades was identified, most likely caused by a piece of ice which had fallen off the casing when diving. Dreadnought also had two small dents in the bows and a piece of the fin was missing – the latter lost in heavy seas on the return voyage.
Dreadnought’s patrol, which was made public, proved that a Royal Navy nuclear submarine could operate successfully under the ice in all latitudes up to the Pole. Kennedy confirmed that there were sufficient areas of thin ice to make under-the-ice operations entirely feasible. But he warned that:
The presence of areas in which DREADNOUGHT was able to surface daily should not be taken to imply that Patrol Submarines could also operate far into the polar pack. There were long stretches of ice where no suitable surfacing area was available and it would be extremely hazardous to allow a Patrol Submarine to go anywhere under the ice other than at the edge.51
Only a nuclear submarine could stay under the ice for extended periods and while the patrol confirmed that the standard equipment fitted to Dreadnought was satisfactory, provided a few minor modifications and additions were made, Kennedy pointed out that if there was a requirement to operate under the ice where icebergs were present, more sophisticated iceberg detection equipment was required. He also highlighted the peculiar sonar conditions. There was a great deal of background noise from the rumbling of the ice overhead as well as severe temperature and salinity gradients, all of which were antipathetic to sonar detections. Kennedy was well aware that ‘the ability to detect enemy submarines in such an environment is largely unanswered’ but:
From experience gained during SNIFF it is probable that under ice detections will be difficult to achieve either actively or passively due to the large number of non submarine contacts which are always present. It would also appear that Sonar Type 2001 is reverberation limited when operated actively under the ice. At the ice edge bathy conditions [the underwater equivalent to topography] were far worse than they were further into the ice. This was undoubtedly caused by the warm Gulf Stream waters sliding in under the cold arctic currents. In such conditions DREADNOUGHT found it almost impossible to detect ORACLE actively or passively, when the latter was operating at below cavitation inception speed.52
Kennedy urged the development of more-advanced sonars as well as further trials as the Arctic environment could ‘offer very real cover for our own forces such as SSBNs if ever required. It is not my province to comment on targets for SSBNs, nor indeed do I have the knowledge to do so; but it is relevant that all places in the USSR North of Latitude 50°N from Leningrad in the west to the Sea of Okhotsk are theoretically in range from the arctic basin.’53
A SPECIALIST SERVICE?
Dreadnought’s patrol to the North Pole was yet another first for the Submarine Service. It was now responsible for the Royal Navy’s most advanced capital ships as well as the United Kingdom’s independent nuclear deterrent. Yet many submariners continued to feel that the Royal Navy as a whole was failing to accept the new position of the submarine in maritime warfare. In June 1972, Flag Officer Submarines, Vice Admiral John Roxburgh, warned his successor, Rear Admiral Tony Troup, that while ‘a good deal of lip service is paid’ to the increased role of the submarine, ‘I am left with the feeling – below Board level I must say – that many officers have not really hoisted in where we are going. A sort of mental blockage.’54
This did not stop the Submarine Service from highlighting their increased importance. In July 1971, a new submarine badge was issued to all qualified submariners to signify their specialist role in the service. Between 1958 and 1964, a submariner’s badge was available and could be worn on the right sleeve of rating and senior rating uniforms. But the badge, which was never issued – it had to be purchased by the wearer from naval stores – was never popular and due to its ugly design quickly acquired the nickname ‘sausage on a stick’. In June 1964, in advance of the arrival of the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) British-built ‘Oberon’ class submarines, the RAN established a submarine project team in Canberra. One of the officers assigned to the team, Commander Alan McIntosh, designed a distinctive version of the US Navy Submarine Insignia, otherwise known as ‘Dolphins’ or ‘Fish’, a breast pin that was worn by enlisted men and officers to indicate that they were qualified in submarines. The RAN design included a set of gold dolphins, facing each other, separated by the British and Commonwealth Crown.
In 1968, the crew of HMS Trump, the last Royal Navy submarine in the 4th Submarine Squadron in Melbourne, was given the badge to wear for a year. Reception and uptake were overwhelmingly positive, and although Roxburgh was ‘not in favour of the introduction of a submarine badge’ when he took up his post as FOSM, he ‘quickly became aware of the desire for a badge in the Command, particularly amongst junior officers and ratings’. In July 1971 the Royal Navy issued a variation of the Australian submarine badge, known as ‘the Dolphins’, which to this day is worn ‘above or in the position of medal ribbons’. ‘The badge has been very well received and is worn with pride,’ noted Roxburgh in June 1972. ‘I believe it will only continue to be held in high regard if its wearing is guarded.’55 To this day, only qualified submariners are permitted to wear th
e Dolphins, which they are awarded (after passing a series of rigorous practical exams) in a ceremony that involves drinking two fingers of rum and catching the Dolphins with their teeth.
Yet in 1971 a worrying episode demonstrated that standards in the Submarine Service were deteriorating. On 1 July 1971, one of the last of the Royal Navy’s ‘A’ class submarines, the 25-year-old HMS Artemis, was alongside at HMS Dolphin in Gosport undergoing maintenance before a planned deployment to the West Indies and sank after undocking. The sinking was caused when the submarine, which was in a stern-heavy trim, became unstable by the filling of its external fuel tanks with 178 tons of compensating water. The addition of compensating water brought the after escape hatch to the waterline. The hatch was not shut and uncontrolled flooding quickly overwhelmed the various compartments inside the submarine. The duty watch on board and twelve men managed to jump onto the uprights of the jetty while others dived into the water and swam to safety as the submarine went down. It took just sixty seconds for the submarine to sink. Three men trapped on board ran from the flooded main accommodation area to the torpedo compartment, shutting a watertight bulkhead door. Artemis developed a 45 degree list on the muddy harbour bed and there were fears that the escape hatches would not function properly unless the submarine was righted.