The Great World War 1914–1945: 1. Lightning Strikes Twice

So lightning did indeed strike twice on a myriad of occasions in British submarines, but how and why, and what could possibly induce a young man to join a life redolent of sardines in a can and with a high chance of ending up just as dead?

Rudyard Kipling attempted to define the submariner in 1916 when he sought to find the origin of the sobriquet that had become attached to the service, still only in its 15th year of existence:

‘No one knows how the title “The Trade” came to be applied to the Submarine Service. Some say the cruisers invented it because they pretend that submarine officers look like unwashed chauffeurs… others think it sprang forth by itself, which means that it was coined by the lower deck, where they always have a proper name for things. Whatever the truth, the submarine service is now “the trade”; and if you ask them why, they will answer, “What else can you call it? The Trade’s “the Trade” of course!’

A very similar sentiment was expressed by another observer many years later. Following his analysis of the circumstance of every British submarine loss, A. S. Evans concluded that ‘the small dank and foul-smelling interior [of a submarine] crammed with noisy and temperamental machinery, was no place for the faint-hearted; it took first-class men to withstand the unsavoury conditions and to perform skilled work with efficiency and with at least a modicum of cheerfulness.’

So, from the very beginning submariners had to be submarine ‘types’.

In short, there was a submarine ‘type’ who wanted to belong to a ‘trade’, but this is still far too nebulous to lead to an understanding of why men sought to sign up. Perhaps a ready source of recruitment, consistent with the prevailing view that submariners were ‘pirates’, would have been the gaols, as suggested by Lieutenant Commander Williams-Freeman of HMS H9 in 1915 when he wrote, ‘I cannot conceive why they hang a man, when the foulest crime to be seen would be punished two-fold if they gave him life, and put him in submarines!’

A better clue is provided by Captain W. R. Fell, a veteran of the Great War submarine operations and mentor of Charioteers (human torpedomen) and X-craft (miniature submarines) during the Second World War, when he stated:

‘To serve in submarines is to become a member of the strongest, most loyal union of men that exists. During the First War and the 21 years of peace that followed, the Submarine Branch was an integral part of the Royal Navy, subject to its discipline and obeying its laws. But it was still a “private navy”, inordinately proud of its tradition, jealous of its privileges, and, if slightly inclined to be piratical, the most enthusiastic, loyal and happy branch of the Service.

Scores of people ask, “Why did men join submarines and how could they stick in them?” There are many answers to that question. For adventure and fun at the outset; then because of the intense interest, and because of the variety of tasks that must be at one’s fingertips. The submariner must be a navigator, an electrician, a torpedoman, a gunnery type, and even a bit of a plumber. He must know men and get on with them, he must use initiative and tact and learn to enjoy hard living. He must accept responsibility when young, and not misuse it. There is every reason why he should join and delight in joining submarines, but the greatest joy of all is the companionship, unity and feeling that he is one of a team.’

It was not only the officers who felt the strength of the team. Telegraphist William Halter of HMS D4 recounts his experience in 1914:

‘It was an exclusive service because nobody but a submarine rating was allowed in a submarine. We got more pay and a very stiff medical examination. Your character had to be perfect to get in and we were regarded as something a bit special. We went to [HMS] Dolphin for training, messed in the hulk and slept in the Fort [Blockhouse]. Discipline was quite comfortable and after instruction you could lie in the sun on the ramparts; a very different navy altogether. When we got in the boats we were so near the officers… every one was close to each other. No red tape, no falling in and out.’

Certainly the experience of Lieutenant Leslie Ashmore bears out Fell’s words concerning adventure. He relates: ‘I had ambitions to get into some branch of the service that would give more scope to a junior officer. Watchkeeping and coaling were eating into my soul.’ He found himself visiting the shipbuilding firm of Vickers Ltd in Barrow, Britain’s principal builders of submarines and:

‘…the sight of so many of these sleek little craft in various stages of construction seemed to suggest a solution to my yearnings. It was therefore not entirely by chance that I struck an acquaintance ashore with two officers, considerably my seniors, whom I knew from their conversation were submariners standing by HMS E18, which was nearing completion. The attraction of their mysterious trade for me must have been very obvious and I was soon being questioned by the senior of the two, Lieutenant Commander Halahan, captain designate of E18, as to what I was doing and whether I would like to transfer to submarines.

Evidently Halahan thought me likely material, for next time he visited the Admiralty, he pulled various strings with the result that I received orders to join the Submarine Depot ship HMS Bonaventure at Newcastle. In those days, entry into the submarine service was as simple as that. There were no organised training classes and the young enthusiast learnt the rudiments of his trade by going to sea as a “makee-learn” in an active service boat.’

Although training became more formal as time progressed, nevertheless learning on one’s feet continued as a basic principle. The 1940 experience of Lieutenant Phil Durham, though not typical, nevertheless underlines the principle. As a midshipman Durham had seen active service in a battleship, an anti-submarine trawler (of which he was second-in-command), a ‘County’ Class cruiser, a destroyer and a battlecruiser, and had earned a Mention in Dispatches, yet his goal remained service in submarines. While awaiting training class, he filled his time by joining the training submarine HMS L26, and spending a fortnight of ‘daily seagoing, diving, gunnery and torpedo practice’, after which he ‘had made drawings of air and electrical systems and was able to trim and handle L26 dived’. His enthusiasm made sense of the ‘bewildering mass of pipes, gauges, dials, levers, switches, hand wheels, air bottles, electrical control boxes for rudder, fore and after planes, and centrally, the aluminium ladder leading to the conning tower and the outside world.’ Like Ashmore his talent was also spotted by a senior officer, in this case the revered Commander Jackie Slaughter, who sent him off to join the recently captured German U570 (HMS Graph) with a warning to the Commanding Officer of Durham’s lack of experience, but suggesting that since he had no knowledge of how a modern British submarine was handled, he had ‘nothing to unlearn in finding out how a U-boat worked.’

It was not until the trainee submariner got to sea that the real test of character began. Ashmore described conditions in the ‘C’ Class in 1915 as:

‘…primitive in the extreme. There was one bunk for the Captain, but all the others had to sleep on the deck, there being no room to sling hammocks. When diving, the atmosphere quickly became foul, fumes from the petrol engine adding their quota to the normally fetid air… Sanitary arrangements consisted simply of a bucket passed up through the conning tower on surfacing. The periscope was raised and lowered by hand winch. By the time we had been dived for some 15 or 16 hours it was as much as one could do to operate it.’

He also declared that ‘during these early patrols I got to know the characters and temperaments of my fellow officers and of the ship’s company in a way and a speed only possible in the cramped space, enforced intimacy, and shared responsibility of a submarine.’

His sentiments concerning the atmosphere were echoed by ‘Stoutfellow’ in the ship’s magazine of HMS Oxley of Second World War vintage:

‘One soon gets used to the smell of feet

Of the bath drain blown on the bathroom wall

Of mildewed socks and of putrid meat

One gets to know and like them all

We get so we hardly notice

The smell of fuel and oil

And from ham and halitosis

No longer disgusted recoil

But there’s just one smell like an angry skunk

That, wafted aft by the breeze

Keeps me tossing in my bunk

The smell of that blasted cheese!’

Add to the smells the daily grind of watchkeeping and the hardships involved in conducting even the simplest functions, and one must begin to wonder if the enthusiasm of Ashmore and Durham (and thousands like them) was not totally misplaced. A letter home from Signalman Gus Britton of HMS Uproar in 1944 summed up the sailor’s life and routine:

‘We have lockers about the size of coffins… and a small table in the fore-ends. Hanging from the ceiling there are about 15 hammocks, so if you want to move around you have to do so in a crouched position… Potatoes and cabbages are piled in one corner and, as it is as damp as Eastney beach, after six days there is the horrible smell of rotting vegetables, and refuse is only ditched at night; and on top of that there is the smell of unwashed bodies… At the moment we are doing about 18 hours dived every day so you can guess that it is pretty thick at night.

What a blessed relief when, at night, comes the order “diving stations” and about 10 minutes later “blow one and six”. The boat shudders as the air goes into the ballast tanks and then up she goes! I am at the bottom of the ladder… and then the captain opens the hatch and up rushes all the foul air just like a fog, and if I did not hang on I would go up with it as well. Beautiful, marvellous air… we are provided with top-notch waterproof gear but the water always seems to find a weak spot to trickle into. Up on the swaying bridge, with a pair of binoculars which you try to keep dry to have a look around between deluges of water, soaked and frozen, you say to yourself, “Why the **** did I join?” Then when you are relieved, you clamber down the ladder, discard all the wet gear and go into the fore-ends, have a cup of cocoa, turn in and, as you fall asleep, you think, “Well it’s not such a bad life after all.”’

Halfway through this catalogue of complaint Britton hastily points out to his parents (his father himself a submariner): ‘Before I go any further don’t think that I am complaining because I really love submarines and this sort of life, and I wouldn’t swop it for anything.’

Not that surfacing at night, with the promise of the hot meal, a smoke, and the opportunity to ‘ditch gash’ was guaranteed utopia. It could be blowing a gale, and submarines, whatever the era, are wretchedly uncomfortable when on the surface in a storm. The misery was eloquently penned by Lieutenant Geoffrey Larkin RNVR, a human-torpedoman in 1942:

‘I can feel, see and hear for a space

The blindness and the deafness both have gone.

Again I feel a love towards my race

Who recently I hated loud and long.

I feel an urge again to smell and eat

The faintest of a half felt urge to sing.

Strange, since my recent thoughts have been delete

And minus, strike out – leave not anything.

I know this saneness probably will last

And flourish just as long as we remain

At rest. Though still I hope this daily dying’s past,

I feel tomorrow’s dawn will see again

The same insensate blankness – nothingness.

A life of one dimension – of complete