by James Jinks
1000Z
Tireless has escaped her pursuers and we’re slowing down again, and Thom McLoughlin and I begin a tour of the boat with Ramsey and Nick Brooks, the Engineer.
Ramsey: ‘The hydraulics is the blood of the system.’
Brooks explains what the hydraulics do to maintain the system at pressure:
Main hydraulics, bulkheads, valves, raising masts and periscopes, foreplanes
External hydraulic system outside pressure hull, masts on bridge, sea water intake
Aft hydraulic plant, afterplanes, steering
We then inspect the heads. ‘We don’t shower very often.’ The submarine odour clings to everything, including the towels. Two of Brooks’s engineers do the crew’s laundry and they get an allowance for it. There are restrictions on water. The boat has two distilling plants. ‘We get rid of the water by pumping it overboard. It’s noisy so we minimize the use of water for a reason.’ It’s 1030 and the squeaking has started again.
The Junior Rates Mess is shared by sixty men. There’s a tray of apples, oranges and pears on the table.
The Galley is manned by two Chefs during the day. One night Chef. 24-hour cover. Four meals a day for 130 people. John, the Chef, says: ‘They base their morale on the food.’ Brooks adds: ‘Without daylight, I know what time of the day it is from the meals.’ ‘We’re creatures of habit,’ says Brooks. ‘We have theme nights – Chinese, Italian and curry. Fish on Friday and a pizza night on Sundays.’
We move down the Two Deck passageway, the main thoroughfare of the boat. The furthest you can see is about 20 yards. It doesn’t feel claustrophobic to me; but it would to some. Brooks says that when you return to Devonport or Faslane ‘your eyes take time to adjust to the long distances. So you leave it for two days before driving [there are no rules, some do, some don’t]. There’s no sunlight so no Vitamin D so we bring vitamins to sea. There’s a calcium problem too.’
In the Escape Compartment, with its oxygen generators and escape tower and the Torpedo Loading Hatch, we’re as far forward as we can get. The rescue submersible from Faslane can lock on to the escape hatch. There’s an air supply in the tower. Special escape suits in boxes. The other Escape Compartment is at the back in the engine room. It takes 3–4 minutes per person to get out.
As we move back McLoughlin says: ‘It’s a monastery of the deep.’ Above the ladders there’s a picture of David Cameron with a rather strange hairdo. It carries a caption:
AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE PM
Don’t stomp up and down the ladders.
The PM has not been aboard Tireless, and he won’t know of his photographic role in this particular piece of the Defence of the Realm.
We see the Laundry, consisting of one washing machine and one tumble dryer. We then descend into the Weapons Storage Compartment, or the ‘Bomb Shop’ to use its informal name. The Spearfish and TLAMs are about 23 feet in length. There are sailors (trainees) asleep next to the torpedoes. There are boxes of baked beans stored here, too. Squeaking again. It sounds particularly eerie down here in the Bomb Shop.
We climb out of the Bomb Shop and enter the Sonar Compartment. It is stacked full of computers. Tireless’s towed array [a series of hydrophones towed behind a submarine on a cable], which is about 800 feet long, is fitted just outside the breakwater at Devonport when she sails from Plymouth.
We descend to the lower deck. There are four battery compartments, the Ship’s Office, for administration and logistics, and the Garbage Ejector Compartment – tins go outside to the sea but not plastics. Hand weapons are locked in a safe. Air purification space. CO2 scrubbers. Oxygen stays in; hydrogen goes overboard (compressed as a gas).
1055Z. Control Room
We’re at periscope depth quite close to Pladda Island off the southern tip of Arran. The first perirecce of the Pladda lighthouse has been done. We’re moving at 4 knots, 30.5 metres above the bottom. We’ll do another periphoto later.
In the wider context of UK intelligence gathering this was quite a remarkable event. For in no other branch of the British intelligence trade are outsiders allowed to witness collection techniques in action. Yet here, unfolding bit by bit, was our country’s capability for submarine-operated photographic, signals and electronic intelligence against a hostile power well endowed with anti-submarine capacity. It was a striking example of openness and loquacity on the part of Her Majesty’s legendary ‘Silent Service’.
The frigates and helicopter are still looking for us but the shallow water disrupts the sonar and makes it more difficult for them to pick us up. Teacher gives Tireless’s position away to our pursuers by ordering the firing of a white smoke candle. The Perishers can’t be put under the stress required if the frigates can’t find us. The Perisher has to decide to evade or go for speed. He takes a look through the periscope. Griffiths explains that we have to be careful about the angle of the boat. Thirty metres above the bottom is the limit: ‘ordinarily it’s forty-five metres. We get special dispensation for this.’
Griffiths says: ‘We’re just below periscope depth at ten knots. We call it “gulping” – taking a look with the periscope and speeding up. If we put the periscope up we leave a huge feather you can see for miles.’ If Monmouth sees us she’ll approach flat out at 29 knots. The Perisher students have to be able to calculate the distance of the approaching ship and ensure that they have a minute’s reaction time, the time it takes to get the submarine to a safe depth.
Monmouth charges and comes about 1500 yards from Tireless. There’s intense concentration all round in the Control Room.
Ramsey: ‘Teacher will fail the student if he thinks he’s unsafe. In Command, we’re trained to take risky decisions, not dangerous ones.’
Hennessy: ‘When did you get most stressed on Perisher?’
Ramsey: ‘On the first Inshore Weekend, funnily enough, i.e. this one. I made a mistake. My perioperator got me run over by a vessel. I was duty Captain. The stress you put on yourself.’
Hennessy: ‘Did you think you’d blown it?’
Ramsey: ‘Yeah.’
Conversation now with fellow weekend rider and Fleet Air Arm helicopter pilot, Lieutenant Aidan Riley. It’s his first time witnessing Perisher from inside a submarine. ‘A really good insight,’ he says. He flies Merlins and we talk of what he would be doing if he was up there hunting Tireless:
‘There’s plenty of opportunity today to see the submarine visually. I would go for visual first and have my radar, which they can detect, turned off. I’d look for the feather-like periscope. It’s only a 12-knot wind so not many white horses. I’d tend to hover at about 120 feet to put the sonar in the water. Are we trying to find the sub or stop it taking a picture of Pladda light? I’d hover there. I’d prepare the bottom topography and tidal work. Where is he likely to be? Trying to get inside the mind of the submariner.’
1130Z
Teacher asks for a cup of cold coffee. He’s a strong, highly direct and hugely experienced man but no doubt he has his own moments of stress too.
1140Z
Probable picking up of Monmouth. It is Monmouth at 4700 yards, making 13 knots. This is a world of constant mental arithmetic. We listen to the sound of Monmouth’s shafts and blades.
1145Z
One of the Perishers, Lieutenant Commander Andy Reeves, gets on the Attack Periscope. The Trafalgars have two periscopes. The Attack is much smaller and therefore leaves a thinner feather on the surface. But it’s not very easy to see through and doesn’t have electronic sensors, which means that when you’re in close to your hunter, you’re more likely to be seen. The Search Periscope has really good vision, electronic sensors and GPS on top. It’s big with a huge head. Normally an all-round look that picks up nothing should keep you in the clear for the next twelve minutes.
Once Reeves has finished his stint as perioperator, we snatch a conversation at the back of the Control Room. How long had he been at work today?
‘Finished at 1110 last night. Got up at four
. Took over at 0515. So six hours. I got about five hours’ sleep which is quite a lot. It’s part of the stress to try and take the sleep off you. The tiredest people I’ve ever seen are the Captains who have been on for three days. So it’s to make sure that you can still think.’
Reeves explains that this weekend’s phase of Perisher involves ‘a totally different way of thinking’:
‘When we came on board first we could operate the boat within the parameters set by the book. Now it’s pushing navigation, counter-detection and avoiding collision and overall achieving of the aim. It’s trying to teach you a balance between those three all the time. Everyone’s got their own limits within which they work.’
It’s good of him to talk when he’s plainly had a seriously stretching morning and I’m struck by his directness, candour and self-awareness. I ask him if on Perisher he’s found out new things about himself.
‘I’ve not discovered anything new. But the traits of your personality come out. I’m way too self-critical. I’ve been told that since I was a child. That part of my psyche that says “bollocks”, I almost have to put that on one side just to do it – thinking I’m not going to help the situation by shouting …’
Reeves describes for me the earlier, Norwegian phase of Perisher:
‘It was just off Bergen, in a fjord. There were three of them – at one point four – charging at you. It was a combination of visual and maths – going back to World War Two. “Eyes Only” we call it. My mental arithmetic was horrendous until last year. Last year I spent thirty minutes a day on mental arithmetic. That sort of stuff you can be taught. But if you can’t take decisions quickly enough, you’re never going to do it.’
This last requirement was to be a feature of the afternoon to come – once in a truly eccentric fashion, as we shall see. Decisiveness is perhaps the master-noun of Perisher.11 Halton had told me earlier that morning that what Commanding Officers really need ‘is an ability to see through what’s important to cut through the trivia’.
1157Z
In the background we can hear an all-round look being taken on the Attack Periscope. I ask Reeves what have been the most stretching bits of Perisher so far. Without hesitation he replies:
‘It’s the first time in your career when you can’t ask someone else what to do. Quite a strange feeling. A lot of preparation is put into making you not panic. Yesterday we were 1400 yards from the Dutch warship. I was on the periscope at the time. Teacher noticed and the duty Captain noticed the change in our voice. Teacher said: “Don’t panic.” You assume worst case – that when you put the periscope down he’ll come at maximum speed.’
Reeves joined the Navy in 1998 and volunteered for the Submarine Service in 2002. He’s served on both ‘Vanguard’ class SSBNs and ‘Trafalgar’ class SSNs and was on Turbulent during her Libyan operations. So, he says, he’s been ten years in preparing for Perisher, ‘then all of a sudden, you’re making it happen at thirty-two years of age’. Teacher was his Captain on HMS Vengeance.
He lists the skills you need to get you to Perisher: mental arithmetic; being able to operate the periscope; dealing with the control; knowing about the TLAM; guiding the weapons; understanding the reactor and propulsion systems. ‘My contemporaries are not doing anything near to this in terms of independence and responsibility.’ He feels, he says, the ‘gravity of it’. He feels, too, ‘the lack of appreciation of what we do in the public’. ‘Annoying’, he calls it. A few months later, the 2012 Olympics threw up a vivid, if absurd, example of this. On 9 August The Times led its front page with a story about the future funding for UK sport, ‘Britain must build on success of Olympics.’12 It quoted ‘Fuzz Ahmed, who coached Robbie Grabarz to a high jump bronze medal. “It’s an irrelevant amount of money compared to a submarine. What would you rather have, Chris Hoy [who had just won a sixth gold medal] or a submarine?” he added.’13
1220Z
A Close Quarters Drill. Turns out to be a small lobster-potting boat.
Reeves says the Navy is ‘a lot better now’ at letting people know what they do. He was, however, ‘amazed’ by the amount of the deterrent firing chain Richard Knight and I were allowed to record for our December 2008 BBC Radio 4 Human Button documentary (so was I). Impressive, honest man, Reeves. In addition to his naval service he has a wife and two daughters and is taking an in-service degree in marine surveying at Portsmouth University. You learn time management in the Submarine Service.
1230Z. Sonar Room
Broadband and narrowband are explained as I gaze, near mesmerized, at the screens. The broadband looks like a formation of Cirrus cloud that’s turned green, the narrowband more like grey scrambled egg. Broadband picks up general noise; narrowband will tell you what you’re up against. I’m shown where the lobster potter is, the minehunter, Brocklesby, and Monmouth, which is coming in our direction at 12 knots. If Tireless were up against an Akula II submarine of the Russian Navy it would be but a very faint thin green line on the screen. You would not be able to hear it. But you could tell if it was reacting to the presence of another submarine (i.e. you). And the faster a submarine or a surface ship is travelling, naturally the noisier it is. ‘It’s more an art than a science,’ says one of the sonar operators.
1235Z
The Sonar Room picks up Monmouth’s Merlin.
1236Z
‘She’s back,’ they say. We’re due to take another periscope photograph of Pladda lighthouse in about half an hour.
1240Z
The Merlin is about 9000 yards away.
1245Z
We’re slowing down and going shallow. You can feel the boat going up.
1246Z. Control Room
Attack Periscope up.
1253Z
Sound Room says the Merlin has dropped a charge.
Garrett says: ‘It’s not that close. It’s like hitting the sub with a hammer.’
1254Z
The Search Periscope goes up. The camera is on. Pladda light is one mile away.
1254Z +30 Seconds
I take a look through the Search Periscope. The white lighthouse is bright in the spring sunshine and its surrounding buildings are vividly visible.
0101Z
Search Periscope up. Another picture of Pladda light.
0127Z. Wardroom
Teacher, Halton, Griffiths and Ramsey share thoughts on the morning.
Halton: ‘It’s a little bit casual for me. I’d like it crisper.’
Teacher explains what he is looking for in his quartet of Perishers:
‘This is all about them doing it under pressure. I’ll occasionally put my hand on the tiller to steer them in the right direction. As we approach the final weekend I won’t do that. If I have to intervene then it’s a catastrophe for the student. Sometimes there’s no right answer; it’s shades of grey. No longer are you looking for reasons not to do things. You’re looking for reasons to do things.’
Over lunch we talk about the Submarine Service in general. It’s now just under a sixth of the entire Naval Service (as of September 2015 there were 4,554 submariners in a Navy of 33,147). Griffiths has all the figures at his fingertips. He’s recently returned to operations after a spell in the Ministry of Defence Main Building where he worked on, among other things, the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. He has a taste for policy but returning to operations is ‘like coming home’.
Thinking about it later, that first Perisher morning had unfolded like a play – a play punctuated by drop-ins to various working parts of a ‘Trafalgar’ class submarine at sea plus a recitative of conversations about the submariner’s craft, the nature of submarine leadership and the special individual and collective emotional geography that goes with the underwater trade in general and during a Perisher course in particular. As plays go, it’s definitely a drama. Why? Because there’s never that much depth beneath you and there are large chunks of grey-painted steel above constantly trying to put you off. And the thriller element of the play was to increase
as the afternoon deepened.
The afternoon began with another tour of the working insides of Tireless, the aft end this time. There are definitely two weather systems in a ‘Trafalgar’ class submarine. The Control Room is an artificial version of the weather outside, i.e. a nice spring day in Scotland. When you go back over the nuclear reactor (the Trafalgars are powered by a PWR, or pressurized water reactor) to the Manoeuvring Room and the Engine Room, you enter the tropics with temperatures nudging 25–30 degrees. When they are literally east of Suez, the temperature in the Engine Room can reach 60 degrees.
The Health Physics Lab is at this end and handles the radiological and medical life of this underwater village. The team is currently sampling the Control Room, testing oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and nitrogen levels. SSNs only take a doctor with them if ‘we’re covert for a length of time’. The Trident boats always carry one given their ninety-day patrols and the requirement not to break the patrol to get a sick sailor off (though in these post-Cold War times, a submariner whose life was in danger would be evacuated by helicopter, with the submarine spending only the briefest time on the surface). The Medic on Tireless is a Petty Officer.
