UNDER THE SEA LIFE ON A SUBMARINE DAVID

GOLDSON (RGS 1951-1957)

My school reports show that my years there were not as illustrious academically as I care to remember, but I embraced every aspect of school life and thoroughly enjoyed those innocent years with rugby, athletics, cross country as well as the CCF and the Scouts. I have always been an all-rounder, and this stood me in good stead because I won a scholarship to Dartmouth when I was 16 (having been advised by the Careers Master that I stood no chance!) and joined the Britannia Naval College two years later in 1958.

For the next seven years I trained as an Engineer Officer ashore and at sea in a frigate in the South Atlantic and an aircraft carrier in the Far East and the Persian Gulf. The latter experience determined me to become a submariner!

The first step was the submarine training class, experiencing the initial excitement of escaping from 100 feet underwater in the escape tower and learning the intricacies of a modern diesel submarine in considerable detail, whereupon I was appointed to an old WWII boat in Singapore at the time of the Malaysia-Philippines confrontation.

A-boats had been designed for the Japanese war in the Pacific, where high surface speed and long range were important characteristics, enabling us, in the 1960s, to operate from Hong Kong to Australia. Life on board was hot and dirty with extraordinary food, known only to submariners! In recognition of the conditions, and to preserve an old tradition, we wore pirate rig (i.e. anything which came to hand, sometimes out of the ragbag, but sarongs were not a good idea when the diesels were running and sucking a large volume of air down the tower).

Submarines were not particularly effective against the threat from the Philippines’ sampans but, another hangover from WWII, we had a four-inch gun which gave rise to much hilarity, although it turned out to be more accurate than the hi-tech armaments of the surface fleet and we were withdrawn from the gunnery competition to avoid embarrassment. Our longest operation was a major exercise through the Philippines (after the confrontation had finished), around New Guinea, inside the Great Barrier Reef and to Darwin for a short maintenance period, before returning to Singapore via the Sunda Strait.

Following an accident that affected the engineer of another submarine, I switched to another A-boat which was due to come back to the UK round the Cape. This was a magical time for me, re-visiting the ports of East and South Africa before the long voyage north, calling at St Helena, Dakar and Gibraltar on the way. We were required to dive once a day to take bathythermograph data, but mostly we were on the surface amongst the albatrosses, flying fish and dolphins.

After two years of old-fashioned submarining in the tropics and having great fun, it was back to a cold and rainy Britain for more training – this time as a nuclear qualified Engineer at Greenwich and Dounreay in the north of Scotland. That completed, I was appointed to one of the four strategic missile boats (SSBNs) where my responsibilities included the nuclear reactor as well as the systems required to support the lives of 150 men during a dived patrol (581). Whereas the duration of a dive in my old A-boat could be measured in hours, and sometimes days, limited mostly by the battery endurance. In the case of a nuclear submarine, the limit is set largely by the amount of food carried and is measured in weeks and months.

The idea of 150 men imprisoned hundreds of feet below the North Atlantic for weeks on end may, to the layman, seem difficult to comprehend. In reality, it was strangely satisfying. Each man had a job to do and, for me, a considerable responsibility to fulfil. The SSBNs mission was to remain undetected and stay in constant one-way communication with operational HQ. Hence, we were able to receive news and personal messages (vetted) from families. These were the days before personal computers and modern electronic devices, so our entertainment was through 16mm films and games such as the infamous submarine ‘uckers’ (Ludo to the uninitiated). Time passed remarkably quickly for most.

Following five years at sea, and a major refit and a promotion, I moved ashore to carry out a variety of roles in direct support of submarines at the base in Scotland, in the Admiralty Design department and in the Ministry of Defence, before finally retiring as a Captain after 30 rewarding and enjoyable years fulfilling my childhood ambition.