Duration: 2 hours 26 minutes 10 Seconds
Simon: My name is Simon Perry and I am here as the interviewer for the Submariner’s Stories and I’m in Fareham and today is the 4th of April 2022 and I’m with …
Andy: Andy Dinsdale.
Simon: Andy, can you tell us where and when you were born?
Andy: I can indeed. Born in 1966. I remember that because England won the World Cup and I was born in Germany ironically.
Simon: Right, ok. And what was the name of your mum and dad?
Andy: So, my mum and dad were Ann and Frank. The reason why I was born in Germany was they were both in the RAF. Both of them were stationed out there in the mid-sixties, and I ended up being born in the middle of Germany.
Simon: And what were they doing in the Services?
Andy: So, my dad was an Aircraft Technician, and my mum was a Nurse and they met when my dad injured himself in the Air Force and my mum treated him, and he felt that he got reasonably good treatment so he married her (laughs).
Simon: And how long were you in Germany then?
Andy: Probably about 6 months, so not very long at all, so just enough time for me to be born, definitely registered as British, which is a good thing in the long-term, and fairly quickly after that we were back in the UK ‘cos his deployment, whatever it is, posting finished and they were back in the UK. In fact my dad left the Air Force then and we settled up in Lancashire which is where I was brought up from probably the age of about 6-8 months until I joined the Navy.
Simon: And how was school? Did you enjoy school?
Andy: Yeah, school was good. I went to a fairly standard, fairly basic school I guess. Primary School was good, Secondary School I managed to get a few ‘O’ Levels as it was in those days. It wasn’t a particularly good school but yeah, I had a good time, and then went on to ‘A’ Levels after ‘O’ Levels and managed to scrape through a few ‘A’ Levels as well in the bag before I joined the Navy.
Simon: And your parents in the Services, was it obvious that you were going to go in the Services?
Andy: No, not really. I guess, you know, again I’ve got my sister so me and my sister, she’s about 18 months older than me, and I guess we probably think we had, not a strict upbringing but my dad, sort of ex-military and my mum as well … I remember one of the things that me and my sister joke about now is we were always taught at a really young age, if you’re 3 minutes early, you’re 2 minutes late, so we were getting disciplined in terms of time management and things, but that was their background. But no, I don’t think it was obvious that I was going to join the Navy certainly, but I guess my sister never joined any of the Forces. She’s a Head Teacher still up north, pretty much where we grew up really, so my sister went in to teaching and now I guess as I was getting through ‘O’ Levels, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I remember at the time thinking, I played a lot of football, so as always you know I wanted to be a Professional Footballer ‘cos everyone did but recognised quite early on nowhere near good enough. I wanted to be, ‘cos you know in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the space race was on, so I wanted to be a Pilot or an Astronaut and didn’t do any of those. So no, I think the Forces was … again you’re interested at the end of my ‘A’ Levels, I was getting towards the end of the ‘A’ Levels, I just remember thinking back at the time I’d just had enough of school. I just wanted to stop school and look around, you know, what are the options? Quite a lot of my friends from school, some of them that didn’t go on to ‘A’ Levels ‘cos that wasn’t compulsory, ended up doing Building, Plumbing and those kinds of things. Painting and Decorating but I got off to ‘A’ Levels and you know, I thought as I was half way through it, University just isn’t for me, I’ve had enough of that, so looking round and ended up doing joining as an Apprentice. Joined the Navy as an Apprentice and it was really just, I guess if I’m talking to my son now, because I didn’t know what to be, but I did know I didn’t want to go to University.
5 minutes 2 seconds
Simon: So was it the travel, or the … what was it that attracted you to the Navy?
Andy: Yeah, a bit of the travel, but I think, you know I was looking round at options and I’d always enjoyed Engineering and I guess for me, looking around the options for Engineering. The Navy as one of the three Services, were offering what looked on paper to be one of the best Apprenticeships, and I did look at the Army and the Air Force as well, but joining as what was then called an Artificer Apprentice, was certainly from my perspective as an 18-year old, something that was going to give me a good career in the long term, whatever it was that I decided to do, so I think it was the offer from the Navy was an Apprenticeship and seeing the world and things like that as well. So, it was a mix of … I think it was predominantly the quality of what was offered in terms of the training, and some going around and seeing the world, but I think it was more the training and the Engineering that attracted me than seeing the world.
Simon: And when you joined, you went to Surface rather than …
Andy: Yeah I did. So, I joined as an Apprentice and then at the end of my Apprenticeship, you had to do sea time. You had to do a year’s sort of familiarisation on a ship, and I joined HMS Broadsword as an Apprentice and spent most of that time onboard at the Gulf, so what was then called Gulf War 1, so …
Simon: Or Gulf War full stop.
Andy: Well absolutely. It was the first Gulf War and again I was early 20’s at that stage and I remember you know my 21st Birthday on 17th May, we got shot at. It was one of those things you don’t ever forget, so you can Google it now, you know, 17th May 1987. In fact, it was the USS Stark that got hit, so you can Google it and USS Stark got hit by a missile from the Iranians on the 17th May, and we were relatively close, so thankfully for us, it didn’t come and get us. But yes, I spent a lot of time on surface ships initially, and then at the end of that I spent 3 months out in Hong Kong. And again, surface ship related, learning how small ships work in the Navy, so finishing off my Apprenticeship. And then at the end of that, I got promoted to Midshipman, and I think the combination of what I’d seen on surface ships, and I think particularly towards the end of it, you know, looking at small ships, and the difference between the two, I guess gave me a bit of an impetus that the surface ship Navy wasn’t for me, for a whole bunch of reasons. Having been promoted, and then went through Officer Training, you know I was quite certain in my own head that that’s not for me, but I did enjoy being in the Navy as an Engineer. It’s a fantastic challenge and saw the light and became a Submariner (laughs).
Simon: You were saying between … what’s a small ship, what’s the definition of …
Andy: So, there were Patrol Boats, so literally, I can’t remember the exact size, 30 metres, like Fishery Protection type small ships, and in Hong Kong, there were the Patrol Boats patrolling for illegal activities in and around the Hong Kong waters, so when the Navy was still in Hong Kong, I ended up doing time on those, and literally you know the crew was 10-15 people as opposed to 100 plus on a Warship, so really small boats, or small ships, they were boats. And I think it was that sort of environment on a small ship that made me realise that you know, what I’d seen on a big ship wasn’t really for me, and that’s why I ended up going in to Submarines.
Simon: How does the Officer bit come around then? Is that something you apply for or you’re selected for?
Andy: Well, it’s a bit of both really. It’s through discussion with my bosses at the time, and as an Apprentice, I guess most people when I was joining as an Apprentice were coming straight from ‘O’ Levels, ‘cos you didn’t need ‘A’ Levels to be an Apprentice, but I’d done that extra sort of 2 years, got a few ‘A’ Levels and so in principle as an Apprentice, I was sort of overqualified. I wasn’t at all but the view was maybe there were other things you could do and I guess it was through discussion with people, my bosses at the time recognised that I had the potential as well as being a good Senior Rate, is to be an Officer ‘cos I had the qualities that they perceived to be an Officer and an Engineer. So, it’s a bit of you know, I had to want to do it obviously, so you do have to apply for it, but then you need to get the appropriate recommendations and you pass Interview Panels and things like that, so it’s a bit of both to be honest.
10 minutes 57 seconds
Simon: And what is the difference of being an Officer against being what you were before?
Andy: I guess, you know, when I eventually got to the submarine and it was the same in a surface ship as well, is that you know as an Apprentice I was required, as I would have been as a Senior Rate, to understand the detail, so you know you’re a Professional Technician effectively, so you did need to understand exactly what’s happening, whereas from an Officer’s point of view, you tend to be more of what I’d call a System Manager, so understanding the overall systems so you don’t understand the same detail as a Chief Petty Officer or a Petty Officer, but what the Captain wants you for as an Officer is that overview of the overall system and to be able to understand to an appropriate degree, the technology the Technicians are briefing you on, and then to be able to translate that into terminology that the Captain and above understand. You’re more of a System manager that a deep Technician really.
Simon: But useful to have … understand the detail.
Andy: Absolutely, and I think that’s why I guess I like to think having done the Apprenticeship, I didn’t end up staying that long, I did 4 years in the Apprenticeship and understand the detail. I think having had an Apprenticeship, then that served me well, and you know when I was going through as an Officer, if I look at Manadon which is where we did our degree training as an Engineer Officer, when I was going through, probably I’d estimate maybe 30, 40 maybe even 50% of my era going through, were what we called Upper Yardman and I’d started as a Rating …
Simon: What did you call them?
Andy: It’s called Upper Yardman. Again that really just signifies somebody whose come from what the Navy calls ‘the lower deck’ (laughs) and have been promoted through a scheme that the Navy had, and you either, you know, typically you either became an Officer relatively early, which is what I did, or there’s another route where you don’t go as early as I did , on what we called the Upper Yardman scheme, and you leave quite a few years later, and you then become an Officer through what the Navy used to call, I don’t know what it’s called today, is Special Duties, so you become a Chief Petty Officer or Petty Officer, get the experience there, and then you become an Officer, a slightly different route from being a Chief Petty Officer or Petty Officer, and I went the early route I guess.
Simon: So, when you’re an Officer working with people that you used to work with, do you sort of have more credibility with them? Sort of ‘he was one of us.’
Andy: I think you do. You’ve got to have a careful balance because yes, you do understand what’s going on in the Junior Rates and the Senior Rates Mess, so you do understand that, but what you’ve got to do is strike that balance between the fact is you are now an Officer and they’re in a different position, so achieving that balance is really quite important for everyone to understand. You know, people get it wrong and I’m not suggesting for one minute that I got it right, but you know sometimes you then become too close ‘cos you try and say, “I was one of you” and yaddy, yaddy yada. Or, you go totally the opposite way and say, “I came from you and I don’t want to be associated with you anymore” so you know, that is a careful balance to strike really. I think I did a reasonable job.
Simon: So, how did you find the transition then, switching there?
Andy: I think it was difficult at times to be honest, and particularly … again it’s interesting as I’d joined the Navy as an Apprentice so as an Artificer, particularly when you got to sea, you were the lowest of the low. Everyone hates the ‘Tiffs’ and you know particularly as a Junior Tiff, so you were hated by everyone. Not quite hated but you know people … because you were going to get promoted as a Senior Rate fairly quickly, so people envied you and hated you and so I’d gone through that as an Apprentice and then actually I got advanced as it was the Navy from basically an Able Rate to a Leading Hand, so I left as a Leading Hand. So, by that stage as a Leading Hand, even as an Artificer, you know you’re seen as somebody whose actually … people can listen to you, so you’ve moved up the chain off the bottom of the ladder. And then going in to Officer Training, you’re back as a Midshipman and you tend not to get Midshipmen on submarines. But certainly, on surface ships, you know if you look at a Midshipman during their training, they’re even lower than the ‘Tiffs’ so you know as a Midshipman onboard you’re definitely bottom of the pile. Because again, it’s just recognition that you know, you are a Junior Officer, you’ve got to understand your place, and I guess for me, having been through it, you thought you’d got somewhere and then you’re back to the bottom of the rung of the ladder. And as I say, certainly as a Midshipman, it’s that really careful balance because you can’t keep turning round and, “Yeah, I know that, I’ve been there before, I’ve done that” you sort of got to take a bit of it on the chin ‘cos you’re now a Midshipman, so there were times when you’ve got to bite your tongue and you think. “Yeah, I understand what you’re saying and you need to understand I understand what you’re saying as well.”
And likewise, you know, “My colleague who is a Midshipman, same as me, who’s just come straight from school, he hasn’t got a clue what you’re talking about, ‘cos you’re talking a different language at the moment” and it’s difficult sometimes for the Ship’s Company to … and you can’t expect them to, you know, treat people differently and say, “Oh yeah, he’s different because that Midshipman there knows nothing about the Navy and I’m using terminology that … whereas that one has been in the Navy all of 4 years, but at least he understands the terminology now” so yeah, but as I said, you know, a lot of what I was going through at Manadon doing my Engineering Degree, a lot of us were in the same boat, and so you know, I think the transition as such was relatively straight forward. I remember going to … I’d done my Basic Training at HMS Raleigh, as an Artificer, and it was what my dad would have called ‘square bashing’ so it was hard training, Basic Training and punishments were fairly regular (laughs) and I remember getting to Dartmouth, starting my Officer Training, which is where the Officers go for their initial training, and again classic, you got there on a bus and you’re on the Parade Ground. Minute 1 of Officer Training and there was somebody at the front telling you how your training is going change you from what you are now into what you’re going to be in the future, and then at the end of that, there was, “Right, everyone go off to” and you had various Quarters, and somebody came up and because it was a slightly different training and offered to carry my bag. I was talking to other people afterwards, “What’s going on here?” “No, you’re not having my bag” (laughs). You just think, “What are you going to do with my … are you going to take my bag, you’re going to chuck it in the river aren’t you? No, you’re not carrying my bag.” It was good times.
Simon: And when you do the training to become an Officer, the Officer Training is sort of teaching you management skills is that?
Andy: It is, it’s teaching you people management, leadership and those kinds of skills, so yes it is, and it’s giving you a, I guess it’s more of an overview about you know the Ship or the Submarine Service.
Simon: So, where you’re individual submarine may fit in within an overall mission or role.
19 minutes 31 seconds
Andy: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s teaching you about the, I guess, understanding you know the Navy ethos and the history so you get a lot more about you know the background in the Navy so you learn more about that. You learn more about things like, you know, you think more about Politics, in terms of what is the Navy in the bigger context, so I guess it’s getting you ready, even at that as a Junior Officer to think more about rather than as an Apprentice, you don’t necessarily get that level of detail in terms of you know, what’s the Navy, how is it funded and things like that so they try and get into you early days about what the Navy is actually about and the pride that the Navy can hold its head up and there’s bits in there about, you know I mentioned earlier the different ways of becoming an Officer. You can either go early or a bit later, and if you are what is called a ‘Special Duties Officer’, you’re typically a later and you don’t do the same training as a Junior Officer, but they would go on what used to be called ‘The Knife and Fork Course’ so teaching you etiquette and you know how to use a knife and fork and things like that. So, there’s things like that that you learn as an Officer, that is quite important, because in terms of you know understanding sort of Mess life and that kind of context. I guess it’s sort of broader training as an Engineer just to understand, you know, again as an example, as an Engineering Officer, at Dartmouth which is where you do your training, a lot of your time is spent on things like understanding Seamanship. So, understanding … and you have to do the same things as the eventual Seamen Officers.
Simon: What is Seamanship?
Andy: So in terms of driving a ship. So, understanding what happens when you put the engines ‘Ahead’ and your twin screw ship, understanding what happens when you put 1 propellor ‘Ahead’ and 1 propellor ‘Astern’. Understanding what happens, you know, how do you come alongside. So, actually down on the river, you’re driving little boats and understanding that, so as an Engineer, you’ve got to understand that. Things, that again as an Engineer was really quite hard work and frustrating but necessary, is understanding things like, what is still called ‘The Rule of the Road’ and that’s for the Navy understanding at sea. When you’ve 2 ships coming close to each other, which one’s got right of way, so it’s all that kind of thing. Sail and steam and all those kinds of things. So, understanding what red lights and green lights and white lights mean on a ship or a submarine. You had to, even as an Engineer, you think well why am I … but it’s that rounded picture that people are trying to give you is that even as an Engineer, you do need to understand you know, what are the things like, ‘The Rules of the Road.’ You understand what’s important. Now as an Apprentice, as a Technician, you’d never do any of that, so it’s trying to understand, or what they’re trying to get you as an Officer is to understand, as I said earlier, it’s about that system view to understand the bigger picture, and it’s things like that. You know, even as an Engineer, you learn Morse Code. Flashing lights and I remember many early mornings, because you tend to work better in the dark mornings. You’re stood outside the Gym in Dartmouth, watching lights flashing on and off and learning Morse Code.
Simon: Is that something that’s stuck with you?
Andy: Ah, no (laughs). I think I could do SOS but no, and you know those kinds of things that were important at the time and things like the Rule of the Road, I still understand the difference between red and green on a ship, but it’s many years since I’ve sort of done that in detail, so no, there’s bits that do stick with you, but I guess you’ve been through that and so you understand some of it.
Simon: When you were saying about the Engineer, so you’re a Engineer Officer or Officer Engineer.
Andy: Engineer Officer.
Simon: So that’s a different sort of Officership to other sorts of Officer. I’m completely ignorant on this.
Andy: Yes, so … right, no, absolutely. So typically … it’s the same on ships and submarines typically, so you’ll have basically the Ward Room is where the Officers live and eat and work and things like that, so you’ve got the Officer Corps if you will, and then you’ve got a whole bunch of non-commissioned Officers and so typically if you look onboard an average submarine as an example, you’ve got the Captain, whose typically what you call a Warfare Officer, so his training all the way through as well as that early generic training that’s common to everyone, the Captain then goes off, his specialism is Warfare. So, you’ve got the Captain, 1st Lieutenant would be the same sort of thing, so the Captain’s 2nd in command, so he’s another Warfare Officer, and then you’ll have you know a reasonable number of what you call Warfare Officers who’ve been through and understand how the submarine in my case eventually operates, how you tactically use a submarine up against an enemy, so you’ve got the Warfare Officers. And within that you get sort of specialisations like for example you’ll have a Navigation Officer, so Warfare Officers specialising in Navigation, but eventually the Captain could have been somebody who’s come through from a Navigation specialisation. So, you’ve got Warfare Officers, and then I guess you’ve got Engineer Officers and typically you’ve got two types of Engineer Officers. You got Weapons Engineer, which I was, so on a submarine involved with the maintenance of everything that takes it from being a platform that moves through the water, to being a War Fighting platform, so that’s the weapons, called a Weapons Engineer but the weapons, the Combat Systems, Command System, Communications, so everything that makes into a warfighting vessel. And then you’ve got what we call the Marine Engineers, so a Marine Engineer Officer whose responsible on a nuclear submarine for the Nuclear Plant, management of the Plant, and everything that makes it into a platform that can stay at sea for many weeks and months, and that’s everything from you know, making the electricity that keeps the lights going, through to making fresh water, through to making habitable air and everything that takes it an environment that you can live in, and that tends to be the Marine Engineers specialisation. Now there are bits that cross-over between Marine Engineer and Weapon Engineer. Some of the sort of specifics, and then the other one that you’ve got typically is a Supply Officer so they’ll be responsible for provisions and making sure there is enough food onboard and not just food, making stuff, you know you’ve got the right stores onboard and things like that, so those are the kind of people that you’ve got. And then again in each one of those, so it’s typically a Warfare Officers, Engineer Officers of two ilk’s , and Supply Officers, and that’s pretty much it really, and it’s the same sort of thing on a surface ship. You’ve got a Warfare Cadre I guess you’d call it, who ultimately for the Royal Navy … the only way you can command a ship or a submarine, is having gone through the Warfare Officer training route, so as an Engineer, I could never have even if I’d have stayed in for 40 years, I could never have commanded a ship or a submarine. Now that’s different in the US Navy, but in the Royal Navy you have to go through the Warfare Officer route to be able to be in command of a ship or submarine. As an Engineer, you can’t get through that and it’s the same for the Supply Officers as well.
28 minutes 13 seconds
Simon: The Officer Training, that was while you were still in the Surface Fleet was it?
Andy: Because I’d made the decision I guess coming out of my Apprenticeship, so the early stages were generic, you know at Dartmouth, which is where all the Officers go for their training, but as an Engineer Officer, you only do about 3 months in and around Dartmouth so it’s fairly short, and then as an Engineer Officer, we went off to Manadon in Plymouth, to do a degree, so you go off and …
Simon: Full time?
Andy: … full time degree for 3 years. And then, as you get into that Engineering sort of degree training, fairly early on you specialise either … again it’s all the Engineers in one funnel at the start, but fairly quickly you either categorise as a Weapon Engineer, as a Marine Engineer, or the other categorisation was Aircraft Engineer. So, within the first sort of 6 or 8 months, you’re specialised in one of the areas, and then you do more of your degree is focussed on whether you’re a Marine Engineer, Weapon Engineer or an Air Engineer.
Simon: That’s your choosing, which route you go down?
Andy: It’s a bit of both, so the Service need comes first, but they do try and put people into the slots they want to do, so I wanted to be Weapon Engineer and I ended up. I’ve got friends who wanted to be of one ilk and because of the Service needs were such, they were asked to consider a different route. Some did and some didn’t. Some left at that stage but some were quite keen to do something different. For me, I ended up carrying on as a Weapon … I’d started as a Weapon Engineer Artificer, and I carried on doing my Degree as a Weapon Engineer . And then popping out the end with a degree but even at the degree, it was still a generic Weapon Engineering Degree. It wasn’t a Weapon Engineering Degree but it was a Degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering, but it was focussed on the Weapon Engineering aspects, and it was at the end of the Degree I guess that you started … well, that’s when I started my Submarine Training in earnest, because I then went off to HMS Dolphin to start doing proper submarine stuff, having done … in fact at the end of my … ‘cos my training was such that as an Officer, you have to do … I mentioned the time as a Midshipman, you have to do what’s called ‘Fleet Time’ so you have to do some time onboard and understand how the actual ship works. Not the engineering side of it, but the practicality of it, so I had to do Fleet Time at the end of it, and then I went off and started my, what they called Part 1 of my Submarine Training in HMS Dolphin. So, I guess it was from that point onwards, that having done the generic stuff, it was then you know, Submarine Weapon Engineering.
Simon: When did the submarine choice come in then? I can see the Weapon side but …
Andy: Again because you had to start thinking about planning for the future, it was really in the final year of the Degree, people then had to start thinking about … ‘cos again the Navy’s got to plan how many people it needs, and whilst, in that final year of the Degree, I knew I was going to pop out the end of the Degree with an Engineering Degree but I was then going to go straight to Dolphin effectively and start my Submarine Training, whereas the people who hadn’t wanted to be, or go into submarines, went to a different route. I guess personally I’d made the decision for myself when I was leaving as an Apprentice, but it wasn’t really sort of nailed until halfway through.
Simon: You just hold your hand up for long enough.
Andy: I guess it goes back to deciding during the Degree course, well the Navy need this many Submariners, this many Air Engineers, this many Weapon Engineer surface ship. You know, who wants to volunteer for Submarines? And if you get enough volunteers, then good, if they don’t then it’s the same in …
Simon: You get volunteered.
Andy: … and you get voluntold (laughs). And then your judgement there is to you know, if you get volunteered for submarines, you know some people didn’t like the idea, but many tried it and then realised that they were so glad that they’d been voluntold. So yeah, but for me personally, it was something I wanted to do, and I was lucky enough to do it.
Simon: What was it … can you identify what it was that made you hanker for the submarines?
Andy: Yes, it’s interesting. It goes back to my time on ships as an Apprentice, and I guess I would have aspirations of doing my Apprenticeship and then sort of moving on to be an Officer and I guess on a surface ship serving out the Gulf, I was conscious that … I was looking at what the Weapon Engineer was doing onboard a ship. I remember talking to people at the time that they seemed to be just there to … and I use the term, a jumped up stores chaser, so just responsible for chasing stores, and sending signals and getting stores, but the bit I enjoyed and I guess I was lucky enough to do it as an Apprentice, is more of the operational side of it as well, so yes, I wanted to be responsible for the Engineering System onboard, but I also wanted to do operational stuff and understand the tactics and things like that, and I found that as a Weapon Engineer onboard a ship, you didn’t typically do that. And I guess the other thing that I find when I was in General Service, is that what I enjoyed, you know the idea of an Engineer and I’d done some sort of research about a Submarine Engineer, is that ability to understand the wider context as well, so understand what’s happening. In a nuclear submarine it’s called ‘back aft’ so the Marine Engineering described, whereas I was finding in surface ships, you know you get a lot of Weapon Engineers who whilst maybe once or twice in their early training, but have no idea what’s happening down the Engine Room, and actually some of them really quite anti , “Well that’s for the Marine Engineers, we don’t go down there” and likewise, you know going into places like the Bridge, and the Ops Room, they say, “Well no, that’s for the Warfare Officers, we don’t go there and do that” so I guess the bit that I wanted to do as an Engineer is, absolutely do the Engineering, but also you know, try and do a bit more of the Warfare side as well, as a Weapon Engineer Submariner it gave me that balance between being absolutely being responsible for the engineering but onboard as a Weapon Engineer, you know one of my day jobs was to give tactical advice to the Command on the use of the weapons. So, because of that, I had to understand a) the weapons which was my day job but understanding sort of you know, deployment of weapons and understanding the threat tactics and things like that, so it was that balance that gave me what I wanted as a Submariner.
36 minutes
Simon: So, then the first day at Dolphin, what was that like?
Andy: I can’t remember the actual first day but I think joining Dolphin with I guess a whole bunch of a mix of Engineers and people who would eventually become … ‘cos you were back into that generic training again, so there was a bunch of us that had been through Manadon, so a couple of guys that I’d been through 3 years at Manadon with, we now find ourselves in Dolphin, and then you find yourself a bunch of other people as well (laughs) and people who have different backgrounds and I mentioned the Special Duties route of becoming an Officer and people had been through that as a Warfare Officer, so there were people in Dolphin on my sort of course going through who’d gone back to doing that kind of thing.
Simon: From surface …
Andy: Either from surface or from sort of different bits of submarines and things, and likewise you know you had a bunch of people you know who were training then to become Warfare Submariners. So, you were back in amongst what the Navy calls Part 1 Submarine Training, so you’re back down to the bottom again (laughs). You know nothing about submarines and your job here is to learn about how submarines work, and again the interesting thing for me is, having just been through 3 years of a Degree and learning quite a lot of I guess … Joe with my son now, actually quite some hard Maths and Physics and Engineering. You’re back to, and quite rightly, understanding the basics again. You know, what makes a submarine dive and what makes a submarine come back to the surface, but that’s really important as a Submariner, that you understand the generics about what makes a submarine move through the water and what happens if you have a flood on a submarine. And its understanding those generics again. Before you then go on as a Submariner. So, you’re back to understanding the basics again, which is really good and it reinforces the importance of understanding, I call it the basics, before you then go off and then take what you did in your Degree to apply it to Submarine Weapon Systems, and then learn about the specific Weapon Systems and Combat Systems on the submarine that you’re eventually going to go to, and for me, you know it was Trafalgar Class submarines. So, you go back to the basics and then the Part 3 is putting in things that you have learned in your Part 1 and 2 Training into the reality on a real submarine.
Simon: Did it feel different, being in the Submarine Service after Surface?
Andy: Oh it did yeah, and that’s the bit that I guess I was quite pleased with really ‘cos it was different in the way that I expected and wanted it to be.
Simon: You had the expectation.
Andy: Yeah I think so. I sort of hoped it would be different, and it was, and I’m pleased it was.
Simon: In its way sort of ‘all in it together.’
Andy: Yeah, and it was exactly ‘all in it together’ and I guess that’s why they throw you back into you know the Warfare Officers and Supply Officers and Engineers doing the same kind of Basic Training and then you go off and subspecialise depending on what you want to do, so you’re back in it all together. And I think the good bit about the early training, is that’s common to everyone, so everyone onboard, you know Supply Officer, Weapon Engineer, Marine Engineer, you’ve got to understand you know what is it that makes the submarine operate and so you do those, what I call basic in terms of submarine operations, and then you go in to things like understanding you know, what is it that moves the submarine through the water. How does the reactor … what is a reactor? Whilst Marine Engineers have to go off and do a far more detailed training about the Reactor Plant and its operation, and it’s safety and procedures and things like that. Again as a Weapon Engineer or the Supply Officers or the Warfare Officers, we’d go off to Greenwich, and do quite a long time in Greenwich doing what was then called ‘The Nuclear Greenwich Course’ so even as a Weapon Engineer, I’m not directly responsible at sea for the reactor, actually alongside as an Officer of the day, I am responsible or was responsible as the Captain’s representative, if there isn’t a Marine Engineer onboard, and as a nuclear submarine, you can operate different regimes where you don’t necessarily have to have a Marine Engineer Officer onboard all the time, so there are times as an Officer of the Day on a submarine where if a bad thing happens alongside, I’m responsible as the Commanding Officer ‘cos you don’t always have the Captain onboard. I would be responsible as the Officer of the Day to do the right things and that can be if something’s gone horribly wrong with the reactor. So, I guess it was for me, it was that generic training again and as you said it’s the recognition of the guys. If we don’t all understand how this submarine operates, and one of us gets it wrong, then we’re all having a bad day at the office.
41 minutes 33 seconds
Simon: So, you went straight into nuclear, never to diesel?
Andy: I did, yeah. Interestingly when I came out of the Part 2 Training, so once you’d done the generics, then you had to go and do your Part 3 at sea, so you had to get appointed to a submarine as a Trainee, and again we were one of the … in fact one of the guys that I was onboard, he did his Part 3 on a ‘O’ boat, so the diesel boats were still around then. In fact, one who is still a good friend, he did his Part 3 on an ‘O’ boat, whereas I and in fact the majority because the upholders, I can’t remember the exact timing but were certainly coming towards an end, so upholders weren’t going to happen, the ‘O’ boats were going out of service and in fact there are only one or two left I think. Maybe one as I was coming to need to do Part 3 Training, so most people went to sort of ‘S’ and ‘T’ boat nuclear submarines, to do their Part 3, and I did exactly that.
Simon: And the Part 3, how long did you take to do that? Did you join and it was active or it was repair or …?
Andy: No, so I joined 2 submarines. So, the first submarine, in fact I joined HMS Torbay, a T-Class that was down in Devonport, and joined her alongside in a deep Maintenance Period and that was sort of conscious I guess I was appointed to her really I guess … and the good thing about having a submarine alongside, is you’ve got the ability to do the kind of thing that you need to do as a Part 3, is do the System Tracing, find out everything, and as a submarine, you know you couldn’t really do it on a submarine in refit ‘cos half the systems get ripped out, but on a submarine in a long Maintenance Period, then it did give me the ability to get onboard, get my overalls on and start at the back end and work to wherever it was for the different systems, so I guess it was a perfect opportunity to do the System Tracing that a Part 3 sort of requires. But then the submarine that I joined, Torbay, was going to be in Maintenance for quite a long time, and as well as doing actual understanding the systems and finding out where they are and the valves and finding everything, the other important part of the Part 3 is what happens when a submarine dives, and submarine operations, so I split my sort of Part 3 time between HMS Torbay in a Maintenance Period …
Simon: So, you went to another one to get your sea …
Andy: Absolutely, so I went to HMS Triumph to get my sort of sea experience, and again I was fortunate enough to join HMS Triumph, my first seagoing submarine, flew out to Australia. So, flew out to Australia, having never been on a seagoing submarine, with a Ship’s Company that was going out, so chatting with a few people about submarines, joined the submarine in Perth, or Freemantle, and yeah, a couple of weeks after joining the submarine, dived in my first ever submarine as a Part 3. And then we came back via various places.
Simon: What was it like the first time going onboard the submarine then, when the hatch shut and you were there for real then.
45 minutes 19 seconds
Andy: Interesting. It’s hard to put it into words what it was like because … having been on a submarine alongside, as I said, Torbay, you got used to the environment and so actually getting into the submarine wasn’t a problem. I guess there’s so much else going on it becomes … you don’t even think about it. So, you don’t think about the fact that you’re sailing away because you’ve then got something to do, so the fact that you’ve left the wall, you don’t even recognise that you’ve left the wall because you’re too busy doing what you’re there for. But I guess you know, you always remember the first ‘diving now, diving now’ and you sort of think back to that ‘wow’, and that’s it (laughs), we’re underwater, we’re on our way. And then you don’t really think about it from there on, your just I guess there amongst a bunch of people whilst as a Part 3 you might think, ‘well, I think I know what to do if it all goes pear shaped, but I know everyone around me does.’ So, hopefully I know what to do and the bit about the operational side of it is then getting that confidence, learning things onboard, by what you actually do. Yes, so I guess it’s a really, for me professionally, it was getting towards the pinnacle of what I was always wanting to do really. That’s it now, I’m now on a submarine at 150 – 200 whatever metres it is and we’re cracking on. But interestingly for me, it was a bit of a journey getting there, because you know, coming to the end of my Part 1 and Part 2 Training, we were due to get married, so we had our wedding planned, all great plans going ahead for getting married and we’d had our wedding planned for the August I think it was, and I was told I was joining HMS Triumph in Australia and I wasn’t going to be around for my wedding (laughs). So, it’s come home that evening, say, “You know that wedding we’ve got planned, either we’re going to have to do it really quickly, or we’re going to have to wait ‘till we get back from my deployment and coming back.
Simon: How did that go down?
Andy: I guess it was a first sort of installation to my wife about submarine life, or wife to be as it was then, but we decided to … despite we had all the great sort of plans for the wedding, we just did it really quickly. So, we did it really quickly, got pretty much everything we wanted including a short honeymoon before I got sent to Australia, but the positive thing for my wife, and we sort of talk about it now, is that we managed to get our second honeymoon fairly quickly after the first in Singapore, paid for by the Navy with me alongside in Singapore, in quite a nice Hotel that we probably could never have afforded to do ourselves. So yeah, I guess it was a bit of a baptism of fire as a Submariner’s wife and it was a lesson for us early on.
Simon: Can we explore a little bit … I’d like to go back to where we are now. Can we explore a little bit of that what it’s like being a Submariner’s wife, or at least your perception of that?
Andy: I’ll do my best (laughs). I guess it’s lots of change, and fairly regular change and moving around and getting used to change. Getting used to, my wife would say, getting used to being without me and doing things without me. So yeah, it’s the being adaptable I guess, it’s not just Submariner’s wives but Service wives in general. They can pretty much get on with things when the other half is not around . I guess being understanding as well, so when the other half comes back, all of a sudden what you’ve been doing for the last 3 months perfectly well by yourself, if the husband’s not careful, he’ll want to do that and she’ll say, “Well, I’ve managed to do that.” So, it’s that adaptability I guess, and being flexible, because certainly as a submarine more that surface ships, things change regularly and so plans for holidays and things go out the window because rather than being alongside for … you know you plan for a month alongside and all of a sudden it’s 2 weeks alongside and you’ve got to somewhere else.
50 minutes 35 seconds
Simon: In a way that’s part of it isn’t it ‘cos you’ve been away for a long time and then plan a holiday and then look forward to spending time together, to then not have that?
Andy: Yeah, absolutely. It is harder at times and again particularly in my submarines … again I went back to … eventually when I’d got a proper job in a submarine, to HMS Torbay, we were a busy submarine, so we were doing things that submarines should do, but because of that, my two and bit years onboard was just … I say it’s chaos, but it was just operationally driven and there were times when you’d come back from being away for a while, say we were coming alongside now and we’re coming in and we’re going to be alongside for the next couple of weeks, a month whatever, and there were very real times that you’d come into … you know a Plymouth based submarine, on your way in, you’d tie up at Charley Buoy inside the breakwater and you’d get turned around.
Simon: Wow! Without even stepping on the shore.
Andy: And you don’t even go alongside and you then are frantically making phone calls to the family to say, “We we’re supposed to be alongside this evening, we’re not coming in now. We’ll be back in a few weeks’ time” or a month’s time or whatever, so there were examples of that. It’s really quite hard.
Simon: Is that intentionally or is that just the accepted thing?
Andy: Well, it’s easy to say it’s accepted ‘cos it is accepted, but it absolutely drives tension because all of a sudden … and again when I was still serving in submarines, we didn’t have children, but you can imagine for the families that did have kids, you know all of a sudden, dad’s coming home this evening, kids are looking forward to seeing dad this evening and dad doesn’t come home. The hard one there for the wives is they’ve now got to explain dad’s not coming home this evening, he’s had to go back around and do the job that he’s there for and so whilst it becomes sort of accepted, and it is accepted, I think without doubt it creates tension. Husbands, as it was then, ‘cos it was predominantly men in the Submarine Service, it’s sort of changed now, but yeah, there were husbands that missed things. The classic was miss the birth of your first, second, third, whatever it is child and husbands away for that. Again it was interesting that when I was still serving, serving, not just Submariners but people who almost laugh that off and say, “Oh yeah, I was away and didn’t want to get bothered with that” but then I guess you know you talk to people a bit older saying, “Yeah, I wish I’d been there, I really missed that first few years” or whatever, and again quite often it’s not until you get a bit older, people say, “Now we’ve got the grandkids and I didn’t realise I’d missed that” so it is a bit of I guess bravado really. People say, “I’m glad I wasn’t there for changing nappies and things like that” but I think for me it was … again fast forward to now really is sort of what meant … you know I wanted to leave the Navy ‘cos I’d had a really good time, I’d served in … I think done some really good stuff, but when I eventually left it was definitely time to leave ‘cos it was time to have a family and I didn’t want to be in that situation where that uncertainty wasn’t for me. A conscious decision really.
Simon: Ok. Well, let’s whisk you back to your Part 3. Did you feel the pressure of the Part 3 Exam ‘cos you’d had so much experience of it felt quite easy?
Andy: I guess it’s still hard because … I was clearing out the loft the other day and I found my Apprentice Sea Training Book where we’d done a hell of a lot of things and I reminded myself how much we’d actually learnt at sea, and then there was reminding myself of getting my Dolphins, and that was hard. It wasn’t a given. You know, you had to put the time in, you had to understand things, and I guess as a precursor to getting your Dolphins, then you have lots of practice walkarounds, and you try and prove to people, and again you know as a Lieutenant then onboard, you’re then talking to people with Dolphins and at that stage as a Part 3 you don’t have Dolphins, so you’re then having to draw off people who do, and you do respect them and you gain experience from them, whether that’s the Chef or one of the Engineers or whoever it is, or the 1st Lieutenant or whatever. Now, the one thing you do notice is that the Chef understands things and the 1st Lieutenant understands things and so you have to somehow gain that knowledge and that respect and prove to people that you do know what to do in the event of a high-pressure air burst or whatever and prove to people that you know what you’re going to do so that they can trust you.
56 minutes 20 seconds
Simon: It’s in their interest …
Andy: It is absolutely in their interest and they do want to train you, you know you are the ‘Part 3’ and you do need to be trained and they … and that’s the great thing about Submarine Training, is that they want to instil their knowledge and their experience and everything in you so eventually, and it does come round to that, eventually you’re going to be training a Part 3, but the actual getting your Dolphins and obviously the award and the Board before that, and the walkaround with the Senior Engineer and the 1st Lieutenant and the Captain, and sitting down with the Captain and answering lots of questions is hard, and it has to be and it should be. But the reality is you don’t get to your Part 3 Board with the Captain and 1st Lieutenant if you haven’t done all the other stuff, ‘cos it’s a bit like as an Engineer Officer, having got your Dolphins, as a Weapon Engineer, you then have to go to further training to become qualified in terms of the Weapon System onboard, and it’s the same sort of thing in Submarine Training, you will never get to your qualification if you haven’t been through the training and there are lots of routes … now some people take longer than others, but the reality is you shouldn’t get to your Board either Tactical Weapon System Board as an Engineer or your Part 3 Board if you haven’t got a good chance of passing. People do flunk it on the day, forget things that they actually do know, but no, I think getting to the award of the Dolphins, it is hard work and quite rightly and you’ve got to remember a lot of stuff, but it does become sort of second nature in terms of where things are and what you would do in the event of, so …
Simon: Were there still ‘Sea Dads’ when you were doing yours?
Andy: No, I don’t think so, not ‘Sea Dads.’ As a Part 3, certainly in the Ward Room, you tend to get a mentor and as an Engineer, your natural affiliation is to the onboard sort of the ‘WEO’ and the ‘DWEO.’
Simon: What do they stand for?
Andy: So the ‘WEO’ is Weapon Engineer Officer and the ‘D’ is the Deputy Weapon Engineer Officer, so they were the Weapon Engineers but no, as a Part 3 I guess you sort of muddle through with everyone (laughs).
Simon: And did you have the triple shot with the Dolphins in the glass?
Andy: Yeah, you’ve got to catch them in your teeth, and mine was in Gibraltar, so I mentioned I joined the Triumph in Australia, and we came back a protracted route, various things on the way, including coming back through the Suez Canal, which was interesting experience, but no, by the time I’d done the operations and we’d been in various places, I’d got through all my sort of walkarounds ‘cos obviously I’d done the System Tracing on Torbay, and then able to do the operational stuff on Triumph, and by the time we came back through to Gibraltar, I’d passed my Board on the way into Gibraltar and I got my Dolphins on the casing in Gibraltar (laughs) which was quite interesting again because we weren’t there for long, literally a whistle stop in Gibraltar, literally a few hours, but on the casing in Gibraltar, a tot of rum, catch the Dolphins in your teeth and then we set sail you know, 4 hours later or whatever it was, fairly shortly afterwards. I thought, “Flipping hell, I’ve just had a tot of rum” (laughs), “I don’t know if I’m drunk on duty here” (laughs).
60 minutes 27 seconds
Simon: You mentioned whistle stop, I was recommended ‘Jack Speak’ which I bought and have learnt lots from, you know ‘swinging a cat’ and all that sort of stuff. The whistle stop, is it whistling people on and off a boat?
Andy: I honestly don’t know, it’s a good question we’ll ask.
Simon: I’ll look it up tonight.
Andy: Yeah, absolutely. I’d be guessing if I told you the answer.
Simon: Ok.
Andy: It’s just terminology I guess. Whistle stop just means a quick a quick turnaround and off you go.
Simon: Could you talk through the weapon stuff then, because you’ve now done all your qualifications, you’ve got your Part 3? What is the Weapon stuff encompass?
Andy: So the … I mentioned earlier if you’re in a submarine, the marine Engineers are responsible for everything that pushes it through the water, that makes the fresh water, that makes the electricity, all of the what you quite often call the ‘Hotel and Propulsion Services’ so the Hotel Services. The Weapon Engineer, which is what I was, is responsible for saying the obvious, the weapons, so understanding the weapons and that’s missiles and torpedoes, so this is on an SSN. I never served on the SSBNs, so weapons on an SSBN takes it into ballistic missiles and you tend to sub split the Weapon Engineer on an SSBN to be what we call Tactical Weapons and Strategic Weapons, so there’s a split there between Weapon Engineers on an SSBN.
Simon: And the Tacticals are things that are sort of immediate vicinity rather than the rockets?
Andy: It is but in the immediate vicinity be careful of the terminology because you know, on an SSN, SSNs would typically have from a weapons point to view, torpedoes and they’ve got a range of quite a few miles and missiles and when I was onboard the Missile System, it changed as I was sort of leaving the Service, was sub-harpoon. So, sub-harpoon launched missiles and I’ll leave you to Google the ranges, but it’s quite a long way, and likewise you know nowadays, the SSNs Astute Class has Tomahawk weapons, missiles, so that’s 100,000’s of miles so the impact or the range of influence of an SSN is wide ranging, from a weapons point of view. Launch weapons I guess. The other thing that as well as the weapons themselves i.e. things that you fire out, whether it’s missiles or torpedoes, is the Weapon Engineer is responsible for the Sonar Systems, so understanding all the sonar and how sonar works and what limits sonar, so as a Weapon Engineer, you need to understand you know what happens with that. All the sensors onboard, you know whether that’s sonar’s the predominant one from a submarine point of view, radar when you’re using radar, the periscopes, they’re your responsibility as a Weapon Engineer. Understanding the Command Picture, so Tactical Picture, so it’s basically everything as I said earlier that takes it from being a platform that just moves through the water, and survives, through to being a fighting platform. So, that was my responsibility as a Weapon Engineer is to manage all that kind of stuff. And with a Weapon Engineer Department working for me and the Weapon Engineers onboard.
Simon: So, you aren’t sitting there sort of with the Sonar side, you haven’t got the headset on?
Andy: Not typically. There are times when you would do that but typically the people sat with the headsets on, that tends to be what we call the Operators because they’re good … again if you look at things like ‘Hunt for Red October’, you know ‘Jonesy’ with his headset, telling people what it sounds like, that is an art in itself, to understand …
Simon: To have the ‘beat that tune’ …
Andy: To understand that sound against that sound and understand what kind of ship is that, or submarine or whatever, so that is, as I say, literally an art. So, as an Engineer Officer, what you’re typically not doing is sat at the screens, but what you have to understand is if the Operator’s start getting something different through the system, you need to start understanding well what is it … is there something wrong from the transmission of that sound that gets picked up by the hydrophones, through the computing suites eventually to the Operator’s ears, so why is he now getting a different sound than he was 10 minutes ago? Now that could be there have been changes to what you’re doing on the submarine, it could be the fact that there is a defect now starting to come and that’s why you need to understand … it goes back to my Apprentice days, you need to say, like one of the Senior Rates, the Operators are complaining that they’re not hearing the things they were 10 minutes ago. Now it could be the fact that you’re now working in a different set of water, so different depths, and that’s the reason why you’re not hearing the things you were 10 minutes ago, or it could be the fact that some of the transducers on the Sonar System, there’s a problem there. So, it goes back to the systems side of it. It’s understanding, well they’re now telling me it’s not working as well as it was an hour ago or two hours ago, two days ago, whatever the time is, why is that then? And it’s that problem solving, thinking, “I wonder if it is … oh he said that the other day” and it’s putting that picture together. Fantastic experience when again the other thing the Weapons Engineer’s responsible for is the Periscopes, and typically if you’re operating a submarine below periscope depth, so at depth, what you’ll typically do is if you’re operating deep and for a long time, then you can put normal lighting on ‘cos there’s no reason to not have normal lighting, so you’d be operating in what you call ‘white lighting’ so you then plan to go back to periscope depth to do something, whatever you may need to do. And then, as you plan to go back to periscope depth, you start thinking about right, ok, so we’ve been operating down at 100 metres, 200 metres, whatever it is, for the last 2 days, or a long time, typically not that long, so you’ve got to come back to periscope depth. Right, is it daylight up there, is it night, what’s the weather going to be like, so you start thinking about that and I remember one situation where we’d sort of been down for a while. planned to go back up to periscope depth and we knew where we were obviously. We said, “Right, the time of the day it is it’s going to be dark when we get up there so it’s going to be … I can’t remember where it was there now, trying to think of the story … well we thought it was going to be sort of daylight, and came back up to periscope depth and literally the Captain or the Watch Leader sort of raised the periscope and said, “DWO, periscopes not working, what’s going on?” “It’s dark outside” (laughs) so he totally got it wrong, got the sort of wrong time of day and things and it was just that. We’d got it wrong. But it’s the classic thing, “Periscopes not working.” “Periscopes fine sir, there’s nothing wrong with the periscope, it’s just dark out there.”
68 minutes 48 seconds
Simon: I guess if it’s sticking out of the water, it’s a fully optical system isn’t it so it’s either going to work or it isn’t going to work?
Andy: Depending on, all the periscopes are different, so it is optical yes, but the newer periscopes are what were called non-hull penetrating, so they basically have cameras at the top of them, so the modern ones are what we call ‘Optronics Mast’ so they are yeah absolutely that. In my day, well not that old, they weren’t Optronics so we did have cameras onboard, but it was a path of light down a big steel tube that gave you what you were looking at really.
Simon: So you were saying about the white light. If you were going to be coming up to use the periscope, would you then switch to red light so you’re not leaking light out of the …
Andy: No, it’s not so much that, it’s really getting your eyes … one of the primary sensors, going back to the whole point of a submarine, is to know what else is going on around. When a submarine is deep, the primary sensor is sonar, and that works really well deep, and when you’re in steady water. The problem is as you come up to the surface, or towards the surface, the water gets more messy and it becomes more uncertain, so the sonar doesn’t work well near the surface ‘cos you’ve got lots of wave noise and things like that, so you rely less … it still works but you rely less on the sonar because it’s deadened by surface noise and things like that. So, one of the primary sensors when you’re at periscope depth, by definition is the periscope. Now, there’s different sensors on the periscope, but one of the best sensors is having a look. So, the reason why you take time and a lot of thought goes into going back to periscope depth, is what you’ve absolutely got to make sure is that the person, whoever it is that’s on the periscope, when they first get to periscope depth, can see, because that’s the time when again, on moving things, you do a quick all round look to make sure there’s nothing close because you do get examples where things you didn’t realise they were there and all of a sudden you’ve got to go down really quickly, so what you’ve got to do is really make sure that the person who’s going to be the first one on the periscope, his, or her nowadays, eyes are accustomed to the light outside, so that’s why you go through the white light. Now, the reality is if it’s daylight outside, you’ve no need to change the light, so it’s less so about worrying about what’s being transmitted out, it’s more really about getting the first person that’s going, or everyone that goes on the periscope, getting their eyes accustomed to what they’ll be seeing through the periscope. It’s more about getting their eyes trained and red lighting at times and sometimes you know, what we call ‘black lighting’, so turn all the lights off, ‘cos if you know it’s going to be a really dark night out there, and certainly on the T-Class you have curtains around the periscopes because again it’s interesting certainly when you’re operating at night, you’ve things like, again it’s like looking at the TV, little LEDs like that. That’s actually a non-starter in a Control Room ‘cos that just blinds you. Lots of those around, lots of computer screens and things like that and that’s why particularly if you’re operating in the middle of nowhere at night, you’ve got to get used to seeing in the dark and getting your eyes accustomed to seeing in the dark. Somebody shining an LED like that just screws your night vision straight away. It’s hard work actually and that’s why certainly in dark nights when you’re away wherever you are, you’ll tend to do no more than 10 -15 minutes on a periscope because it’s really hard to concentrate where you’re effectively looking at that, and it’s really hard to look at blackness and …
73 minutes 19 seconds
Simon: And if there’s waves crashing over the periscope.
Andy: Yes, waves can be a challenge, and likewise again in the middle of wherever you are, whether it’s a clear night, a dark night, even simple things like being able to see the horizon. And knowing where the horizon is. On a periscope you’ve got … there are lights within your vision and you’ve got a good idea ‘cos you can move it sort of up and down and again there are times onboard when you’ve seen a new contact ‘cos a ship in a long distance when you’re Periscope Watchkeeper, just looks like a little light. You say, “New contact bearing 345,” or whatever it is. It’s interesting, the other Operators outside of the periscope sometimes will say, “No, Sir, you’re looking at the stars again” (laughs) ‘cos they can see and sometimes you forget to look exactly where you’re looking at, but you’ve let the periscope train upwards, “No Sir, you’re looking at the star, bring it back down” (laughs).
Simon: Yeah, but better safe than sorry.
Andy: Yeah, absolutely, and I guess that’s coming back to the team game isn’t it really because you’re there as the eyes of the submarine. There again, one of my jobs as a Weapon Engineer onboard, the classic 6 on 6 off that all the for’ard, not just Officers, the for’ard routine works, so my 6 on 6 off, 6 on, 6 off for all the time away, my 6 hours on is Watchkeeping and I’m doing the same sort of thing as some of the Warfare Officers, so I’ll be the Periscope Watchkeeper, I can be sat on Ship Control, so you know responsible for controlling the submarine, so when I’m on the periscope, you know I’ve got the same responsibilities as anyone else onboard and not everyone will be a Periscope Watchkeeper ‘cos as a Periscope Watchkeeper you are the eyes of the submarine. If you see something that you didn’t know was there, you’ve got to take the right actions and you could do that really quickly.
75 minutes 49 seconds
Simon: That’s a heck of a responsibility.
Andy: It is, and you’ve got to realise that you’re the one person on that submarine for that 10, 15, 20 minutes, half an hour, or for however long you’re onboard, you’re the only person that’s looking out. If, and the kind of thing you learn as a Periscope Watchkeeper, is what do you do if you see something that you weren’t expecting, and how quickly do you have to operate and what are your emergency actions to make sure that that ship that comes out of the fog that you didn’t realise was there, you hadn’t picked up on sonar, and all of a sudden is there now, what are you going to do? And it’s only you’ve that seen it, and you’ve got to take the right actions.
Simon: Do you ever say to somebody, “Am I seeing this right?”
Andy: You won’t have time. Well, typically you won’t have time, you’ve just got to go with … there will be times when it’s not always like that, there will be times when you’ll see something and it’s not an urgent decision need making, so you’ll see something in the distance, and again going back to the Rule of the Road and you know understanding what a green light is, and a white light and a red light means. You’ll look at something in the distance an you think, “Well that looks like a fishing vessel” because you learn as a Periscope Watchkeeper you have to understand what does a fishing vessel look like at night.
Simon: So it’s the sort of shadow profile is it?
Andy: Well it’s the light. Well at night it’s the light, or it’s the profile, does that look like a fishing vessel? And you say, “Officer of the Watch, I think I’ve got a fishing vessel there” and sometimes you will draw on experience. But again, you’ll see things ‘cos there again quite often you know the visibility is good, particularly if you’ve got a calm sea. Sometimes it’s too good from a submarine point of view, and you’ll see things a long way, and again as a Periscope Watchkeeper, you’ve learned to recognise shapes and again if you’re operating somewhere interesting, you learn to understand other vessels outlines.
Simon: Interesting means a risky environment.
Andy: Well, I guess doing what submarines are there to do really, so you know you’re operating off the coast of somewhere and then you need to understand what are the ships that are likely to be operating in that area. What are the vessels that you’ll see, and if you see a ship, is it a fishing vessel? Is it a tanker going from A to B, just fairly standard, is it a Warship, is it a Warship that’s looking at you, is it another ship that you thought it was a fishing vessel but it’s not a fishing vessel ‘cos it’s got far too many aerials to be a fishing vessel. You’ve got to do that kind of thing at night as well, so what does a fishing vessel look like at night and how do you know it’s a fishing vessel? How do you know it’s not a Warship?
Simon: You’re tested for good eyesight I guess are you?
Andy: Yes.
Simon: Ok. So, what about those times when you know you’re feeling tired and your vision goes a bit strange? How do you …?
Andy: You’ve got to be … again you’ve got to recognise the fact that you are the eyes of the submarine as the Periscope Watchkeeper, so if you think your eyes are going strange, you’ve got to tell somebody and come off.
Simon: Tell somebody else to take over because …
Andy: And you do that and again that’s what I say, particularly if you’re operating at periscope depth at night, your eyes can start playing tricks on you but as soon as you sort of start recognising that, you say, it’s a fairly standard shout, “Relief on search.” I still remember now, even 20 years ago and basically that means you want a Relief and fairly quickly then somebody will come ‘cos you always have more than one Periscope Watchkeeper in the Control Room, and you’ll always have somebody ready to come and take over from you. In a worst-case scenario, you keel over, so you’ve got to have somebody ready to take over and then again as a Periscope Watchkeeper, one of things you are taught is don’t be afraid to ask for a Relief. “Relief on search.” “Bloody hell, you’ve only been on there 5 minutes” “I know .” So yeah, and again it goes back to that bit about recognising what you’re there for.
80 minutes 22 seconds
Simon Right. And recognising there’s an issue so in the same way as you were talking about diodes, perhaps not functioning properly, it’s just that you’re not functioning properly at that moment.
Andy: Absolutely.
Simon: It’s no embarrassment, it’s just here are the facts.
Andy: No, here’s the facts. You know, I’m tired or whatever it is, my eyes are going skewwhiff or whatever, that’s it now, take me out of here.
Simon: So, you’re receiving information from looking through the periscope, there’s the sonar. Are there other sources of information that are coming in as well?
Andy: Yeah, I guess it depends where you are. So, there’s a whole … from a submarine point of view you call a Tactical Picture. There’s lots of things that go in to making that Tactical Picture. You know you will rarely, I’ll go as far to say never use radar. Radar is from a submarine point of view is predominantly a navigation aid, so if you are coming back in in bad weather or poor visibility, you use the radar as a navigation aid.
Simon: Radar is above the surface is it?
Andy: Radar only works above the surface, and that’s the kind of thing you see on ships. It spins round, that’s the radar, but that only works above water. The underwater equivalent is sonar. Now, the reality is if you’re down at 150 – 200 whatever metres, you know the only things that work is sonar, so your only sensor when you’re down that deep is sonar. When you’re at periscope depth, you still can use sonar and you still will use sonar, sonar still works. You’ve got to understand the fact that you’re quite close to the surface so it’s performance is going to be degraded because of the things that we talked about, but you’ve got the optics, so you can see things, so you’ve got that feeding into the picture. But there are other sensors on the periscopes and you’ve got other masts that you can stick up so you can communicate. You can get communications into the submarine, depending on where you are, what you’re doing. You might be operating with friendly Warships, so you can talk to the Warships, help that build up the Tactical Picture, you can talk to other aircraft, so if you’ve got friendly aircraft in the area, so you can talk to them and they can pass you information to build up your understanding of what are called the Tactical Picture, so there’s lots of things that feed into your understanding of what you call ‘Situation Awareness.’ So, have you got all that, do you understand the vessels?
Simon: This is all kept in your head is it?
Andy: No, what we call the Command System or Combat System onboard, all of that goes into building a Tactical Picture.
Simon: So, everyone who is authorised understands …
Andy: So all that input goes into building … and again onboard you end up with a screen of the Command Picture, but again interestingly from a … one of my jobs was a Periscope Watchkeeper, but the bit that, and you’ve probably seen it on TV, you know people talk about the Perisher Course for Commanding Officers, and as an Engineer, I would never command a submarine because the thing that they have to do which is really hard and I guess it’s the pinnacle of those that pass things like Perisher, is, going back to your question about is it in your head, a lot of it has to be in the head.
Simon: ‘Cos it’s faster to process that way.
Andy: Yes, there’s a Tactical Picture, ‘cos it’s a fast process, and the bit that again you can see from footage on examples where they film sort of Perisher Courses, the classic sort of where Perisher Students … in fact when I was on Torbay, we hosted a bunch of Perisher Students and we put them through their paces, so I wasn’t the Teacher ‘cos you get the operations onboard to be the Teachers, but we knew what was going on and they didn’t. Now, the hard one, going back to in your head, as a future Commanding Officer, when they’re on the periscope, they get put under immense pressure and you know there’s Warships operating above, and there’s Warships that will turn towards you and you go up on the periscope or your Commanding Officer, and they’ve got to be able to do a lot of … when you look at a on the periscope, you learn Target Motion Analysis, so you have to learn as a Periscope Watchkeeper, even as a non-command qualified, you got to understand if you see a ship, you’ve got to roughly know how far it is away …
85 minutes 23 seconds
Simon: Just by looking through a single lens?
Andy: Just by looking at it yeah, so you’ve got to roughly know how far it is away, by the size of the ship so you know roughly how far it is, you’ve got to start thinking about how fast is it going, what course is it steering, is it coming straight towards me, is it going away, is it going to the left, going to the right? Now, you’ve got to be able to build that mental picture and ultimately from a Command point of view, you’ve got to do all that mental arithmetic, so right it’s 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 whatever it is yards away, it’s doing a speed of 80 knots. It’s coming towards me at what you call an angle on the bow of 30 degrees. 10 degrees it’s coming straight towards me, so that means it’s going to get to my vicinity in about 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 30 seconds. If it’s the 30 seconds version you’ve got to do something pretty quickly because if it gets within a certain range of the submarine, if you don’t get away from periscope depth, it’s going to hit you. Now, the future Commanding Officers have to be able to do that. With multiple Warships, you can imagine you’re spinning around looking at the periscope and there’s a Warship over there, there’s a Warship over there, there’s a Warship over there, there’s a Warship behind you, and they’ve got to do that mental arithmetic about what each one’s doing ’cos they don’t have the time to go and look at the Command Picture, and deliberately so. The bit that they do really well, far better than I could ever do, is that mental arithmetic ‘cos it’s just phenomenal. You see a Commanding Officer who can do that, and you’ve just got to take your hat off to them ‘cos you think, “Flipping heck, that’s mental arithmetic on steroids.”
Simon: So, when you’re onboard during the Perisher, is that quite good fun for you to … ‘cos you kind of know that you’re safe because Teachers going to be there making sure you don’t get into … the craft isn’t going to get into trouble.
Andy: Yeah you do know you’re safe. I don’t know if I’d call it good fun? It’s hard, because you’re deliberately pushing these guys hard, ‘cos you know you’ve got to push their bounds so that eventually when they’re in charge, they’re going to do what you need them to do as a Commanding Officer. So yeah, ‘cos obviously, I say obviously, you know things that they don’t so yes, there is a bit of fun and it’s a good time but I guess it is … going back to what I liked about being a Submariner, it is wholly professional, you know they’re there as Trainees, they are Trainees, they’re Training Commanding Officers but they’re flipping experienced Submariners. The bit that you know and respect for them is that this is the pinnacle of their career, so the fact that they’re onboard for a few weeks means that at the end of it, either they will have achieved Perisher and become a Commanding Officer, or they won’t. And the really hard one, and we did have people that didn’t, and that’s …
Simon: And that’s the end of their time in the Submarine Service.
Andy: That’s the end of their time on a submarine. Some of them go back to or go to surface ships and continue a career in surface ships, go in different directions, but they will never be a Commanding … and ultimately you do feel for them because … so, yes it’s fun but it’s also very serious fun ‘cos you know you’re there to put them through their paces.
Simon: Yeah, it gives you a chance of experiencing a highly pressured environment without knowing you’re in too much danger.
Andy: Yeah, absolutely. And then you go off and you do that highly pressured environment without them (laughs). Which is good and that’s the bit I loved about it. As I say, going to interesting places.
Simon: So, can you talk about what sort of places you went to or what sort of things you did?
Andy: Not in detail.
Simon: Sneaky trips, is that what they’re called?
Andy: Yeah, and you would do that and quite often people say, “Submarines are operational not decorational.”
Simon: Right. I hadn’t heard that one before.
Andy: And you do, you go to places that used to frustrate my wife is that you’d come back from away and , “Where have you been?” “Don’t bother asking.” You can say some bits and you can say a lot of it, again as a Submariner I was immensely lucky. I mentioned the Far East, Australia, Singapore, various places on the way back through and various places that we don’t talk about, and then likewise fairly standard Cold War Submariner stuff going to places that submarines need to go and do things that submarines need to do, including going over to the US and operating out in the US as well, so in terms of variety of places to operate, I guess in my time on submarines I was really lucky. And people do always talk about the sneaky trips and things like that and it was, and there were times … people talk about Cold War scenarios, and you do go up close and personal. Again, I still come back to me being as a Professional Engineer, and an Operational Engineer, I couldn’t have wanted anything better, ‘cos you’re out there, things do go wrong, you’ve got to sort them out, you’ve got a team around you that can sort them out. You don’t have the ability to nip down to Halfords or wherever it is, you’ve got the stuff that you’ve got onboard, and that’s it. Nine times out of ten, you can’t stop doing what you’re doing. You’ve got to work a way through it, so yeah, I guess that was the pinnacle as a Weapon Engineer, that’s what you want to be able to do.
91 minutes 36 seconds
Simon: How do you know what you can talk about and what you can’t talk about? Is it really clear or is it just because of where you are operating …
Andy: I think it’s experience, and there are places that you operate that you won’t talk about. There are things that you do that you can’t talk about. There’s stuff that you do onboard that you know, people are cleared to see, and there’s stuff that you do that you can’t talk about for a long time. So, there is stuff around those and my day job now, is still … as a Submariner and as a person still working in Defence, you have to sign the Official Secrets Act, and it then comes with experience about what you can and can’t talk about. Again, I talk in schools about submarines and what submarines can do and things like that. The classic thing as a Submariner is that what are you going to be able to do is walk that tightrope of encouraging people to want to serve in future submarines, but also … again there’s plenty on You Tube that you can see in terms of what it’s like to be a Submariner, the classic thing is ‘I went to places that I didn’t go to, and I did things that I can’t tell you about, and I’ve seen things that I never saw ’ and I do, all of that. I’ve seen things that I never saw, and that’s exciting and that was certainly exciting at the time but again you need to leave people to read books and think … but not giving any secrets away, is you know who the … from a western submarine operating nation who the likely adversaries are and just like you see Russian and other ships and submarines coming near to our coast, well guess what? And it’s that bit that’s exciting.
Simon: Ok, thank you. I’ve got this one here, what’s your nickname?
Andy: I don’t think I really had one onboard.
Simon: I thought everyone had one.
Andy: No, I probably had ‘Dins’ when I was at, you know, Dinsdale, again interestingly onboard, you know people say, “DWEO” was the standard thing, but I guess from my friends, quite often it’s just Andy. I think you’re right, lots of people do have nicknames, but they tend to be the people with certain surnames. You know, ‘Smudge Smith’ and ‘Knocker White’ and ‘Tansy Lee’ and those kind but Dinsdale doesn’t really fit (laughs).
Simon: There isn’t one that goes with it. Is it something about, do Officers not have nicknames, or is that disconnected?
Andy: I think it depends really. There are Officers with nicknames, and certainly amongst Officers, then you would use nicknames. Onboard I guess the reality is there is that respect, but when you’re out with the lads quite often you know first name terms, your nickname if you’ve got a nickname, but no I don’t think everyone’s got a nickname. It is relatively relaxed like. When I was out with the Department, people would call me Andy and you know, when you’re on a run ashore, people calling you Andy is fine, and some people continue to call you Sir. So, as an Officer, people do call you Sir, but then again the reality is onboard, you’ve got to draw that careful balance, because people don’t call from a Senior Rate to Officer, there shouldn’t be saying, “Morning Andy.” “No, hang-on, you’ve just overstepped the mark there Chopper” but perhaps when you’re on a run ashore, and I guess it’s that mutual understanding. And it’s the same in all ways, it’s that understanding, you know, where the lines, what can you and can’t you sort of step over. The bit for me, again it goes back to my comment about ‘submarines operational, not decorational’, is there are times onboard where you may be fairly relaxed in your uniform and you won’t wear … in fact when I was on Triumph, you would wear polo shirts, that’s the Ward Room rig, you’d wear polo shirts in the Control Room.
96 minutes 50 seconds
Simon: Is that dictated by the Captain?
Andy: Yes it is, so it’s up to the Captain to decide, but … I can’t remember whether it was on Torbay or Triumph now, I think it was Triumph, we had an incident, something happened while we were at sea, and the Captain came out … on a T-Class Submarine, the Captain’s cabin is just outside the Control Room, so you can come literally within 3 seconds, he’s out of his cabin and he’s in the middle of the Control Room, and there was something happened onboard, and he literally jumped out of bed, cane into the Control Room, no airs or graces, in his boxer shorts, on the periscope, going round the periscope in his boxer shorts. Brilliant!
Simon: Right (laughs).
Andy: But when he did that, he had absolute respect of everyone in the Control Room.
Simon: Because that was the priority.
Andy: Absolutely. It was he needed to be … he hadn’t got time to put a pair of trousers on and get a shirt on and put your shoes on and … you haven’t got time for that, so he was in the Control Room within seconds having heard the pipe , and I just remember that example as I thought back to my surface ship time. Would that have happened? No way, it just wouldn’t happen like that, because there wouldn’t be the urgency to drive that kind of need, but as I say, when he was walking around the periscope in his boxer shorts, it didn’t matter the fact that he just had his boxer shorts, he had absolute respect from the crew and he was the Captain and he was in the Control Room and he was on the periscope. The fact that he had his boxer shorts on didn’t make any difference what so ever.
Simon: So, what about other stories that you can talk about, of exciting times?
Andy: I think there is … again I was talking in work today, you know some really good times, some really good runs ashore in good places. So, in places like Bermuda, Australia, Singapore, and around the UK, so going to Liverpool was some really good runs ashore.
Simon: So, that’s off to the Bars and …
Andy: Off to the Bar, you’ve been at sea for a while and you go ashore with the lads and have a really good time.
Simon: I had heard that people eventually learn not to go out on the first night because it gets so messy (laughs).
Andy: Well, it does and people do go out on the first night and you sort of have to so it is messy, but again it’s the classic submarine sort of work hard, play hard, and again, certainly for the Ward Room, most Ward Rooms are dry. You know, the lads can have, but most people tend not to, but you can drink beer in the Senior Rates and Junior Rates Mess, so because you’ve been so long without beer, the a few beers has the impact (laughs), so it does get messy quite quickly. But yeah, some fantastic runs ashore and I guess the other bit is … again it goes back to the training, things do go wrong and things happen and go wrong quickly, and you have to respond quickly, and I guess some of the … not the best moments when things have gone wrong or things have been difficult and you come through it as a Ship’s Company or a crew or whatever and you’ve gone through that hard time. So, without naming the submarine, but we ended up with full reactor scram, so you effectively lose propulsion and the knock-on impact of that for …
100 minutes 57 seconds
Simon: And everything else that relies on power.
Andy: So, you do have back-up systems onboard so you don’t lose everything, so a nuclear submarine does have a battery back-up and things like that so you can maintain aspects of life onboard, but for a time afterwards, depending on what had happened, it was quite a harsh environment onboard.
Simon: So, you have to then restrict a certain number of things, water or …
Andy So you have to restrict various things like water, like water production, like the number of showers you’re allowed like what you can do in terms of cooking, like ‘fridges. So, there are times when you ended up … with one particular incident, where basically there was a problem with a ‘fridge, and so you ended up with no fresh food or anything left onboard.
Simon: And that’s for the rest of the time away.
Andy: That’s for quite a long time, too long, and a few days was too long, but it was more than a few days, and you end up with … at the start you had bits of … ‘cos when you realise you’ve got some challenges, you eat as much fresh food as you can but that sort of dies away fairly quickly and we ended up with cheese sandwiches. So, freshly made bread, which you can still do, so you’ve got the ingredients to make bread, and cheese, and I vowed at the end of that particular sort of period, never to eat a cheese sandwich ever again (laughs) ‘cos it eventually got to you either have one cheese sandwich or two, or do you want a cheese sandwich or not?
Simon: And there’s not a variation in the cheese or pickle or …
Andy: No, no variation, and yeah, you can put tomato ketchup on it but eventually that runs out, so I did vow never to eat cheese sandwiches ever again. But you forget that over a period of time. I guess for me it’s just great times, hard times at times, brilliant stuff that you can’t talk about, but for the people onboard, you can still talk about it, so I still come back to I’m an Engineer at heart, and as an Engineer, that’s why I talk in schools now about if you want a challenge as an Engineer, you can’t get much better than being a Submarine Engineer, in terms of having to solve all the problems and fix challenges and things like that and all that in a submarine. It’s great to tell some of the stories of what submarine life is like, ‘cos it is good.
Simon: On the food side, were you … I’ve spoken to some people who were completely … fixated is too strong, but food was a very important part for them. Were you one of those ‘cos I spoke to somebody recently and he said it wasn’t for them, which I was slightly surprised at.
Andy: Oh food is, absolutely. I think it’s interesting, food is an important part. I guess food does drive your day, so whether you think food is an important part …
Simon: 7, 1 and 7.
Andy: Absolutely, so you have 4 meals a day, so the Watches are around food. The days are defined by food, by different foods on different days, and it is in my view the one thing that is important on a submarine, is to have good food. And you do. You do have good food, good choices so yeah, food is a really important, arguably one of the most important people is the supply and the Chef and things like that ‘cos they can make or break a deployment. A good Chef, and most of them are good then that makes a massive difference. So, I wouldn’t say I was a food addict, but food does drive your day absolutely.
105 minutes 13 seconds
Simon: So it’s more that you notice when the food’s not right there and everything even going well, an even keel, another Naval term I guess, so it’s more that when it’s not right it’s noticeable.
Andy: Yeah, I think so. As I said, my cheese sandwich example, that becomes hard and so you don’t have the choices, but you do accept the fact that it’s nobody’s fault. But the food is generally good, really good.
Simon: Ok, thank you. Actually, I was talking to one of the Chefs, and he was saying that even the way that goods are loaded on are important because the last thing you’re going to eat is going to be the thing at the back of the ‘fridge, and sort of having it … it just seems like a lot of organisation.
Andy: Oh it is, and store ship or store submarine, yeah you’ve got to think ‘cos the ‘fridges aren’t that big, but the reality is once the ‘fridge is topped to the gunwales, you ain’t getting in whatever is at the back. You’re going to have to eat your way to the back of the ‘fridge (laughs) because it is full.
Simon: Did you have those things that they used to have on a diesel where space was so limited that they put cans on the floor?
Andy: Not that much. There were times when you had to put things in certain spaces but no, not really.
Simon: I guess the nuclear are bigger.
Andy: Yeah, there’s more space. Certainly ‘fridges and freezers and the dry provision stores when you sail away were absolutely jammed packed with stuff, but no I think he was more probably an ‘O’ boat and prior to that sort of dates you know you go down the sort of main drag walking on tins of beans and things like that, so no, we didn’t, certainly on the submarines I was on, we never really had that kind of thing.
Simon: Ok. And did you have hobbies onboard?
Andy: Hobbies?
Simon: A hobby. Was there time for that?
Andy: Yes, I guess I probably didn’t really. Some people did. You know some people were in to fitness, so depending on where you are and what you’re doing, one Captain we had who was an avid Rower, so we ended up with a Rowing Machine down the Bomb Shop, when he was onboard. He was in charge so, but there were times when even he couldn’t use it because sometimes some things are too noisy, so no, I think people do that. Sport tend to be one that people will go on a bike and things like that. Did I have a hobby onboard? Not really. So my, as a Weapon Engineer, you know the 6 on, 6 off, 6 on, two lots of 6 on is 6 on, I would tend to work one of my 6 offs was doing the day job, so catching up with things from the weapons point of view ‘cos it tends to be when I’m on Watch you’re not doing that kind of thing, so most of my off first Watch was doing the Weapon Engineering side of thinks, catching up with what else is going on, and then you get a couple of hours kip, then my next off Watch was tended to be have something to eat, and then get 4 or 5 hours sleep if you can to get up to typically about 6 hours sleep a day and that’s the sort of fairly standard. So, you get 6 hours good sleep a day.
Simon: And just get used to it.
Andy: And you do get used to it. And people ask me now, “How do you get used to that, 6 hours sleep a day? Can you survive on that now?” I say, “No I couldn’t.”
Simon: I guess you were younger then?
Andy: There’s younger absolutely, definitely that, but you do train yourself to sleep properly and quickly and again it’s interesting that even on the short period of sleep, I tended to find after a period of acclimatisation, you can have an hours sleep and you get an hours sleep quality out of it, whereas typically now, because people like me and you now, aren’t trained to sleep quickly, so you go to bed at night and you don’t actually get to sleep ‘till about 1 o’clock even if you go to bed at 10 o’clock at night. You’re not properly asleep ‘till probably about 1 o’clock in the morning, and then you start waking up at 5 o’clock anyway, and then you start coming out of sleep, whereas I think, as a Submariner, you do learn to … and my missus hates it, ‘cos I can switch off just like that, so when I go to sleep, I’m asleep straight away.
110 minutes 13 seconds
Simon: So, that’s a habit you’ve kept.
Andy: I think it is yeah, ‘cos it’s something that as soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m asleep (laughs). “How do you do that?” “I don’t know really.” And I guess that’s the thing, you know as a Submariner, you do have to do that and that’s … in Commanding Officer type territory, is that they’ve got to be able to sleep quickly and you do get into deep sleep quickly, good quality sleep, and you wake up quickly as well ‘cos sometimes you have to. You can’t, “Oh, I’m just getting out of bed now, give me 10 minutes …” (laughs).
Simon: I need a cup pf tea (laughs). Maybe we could talk a little about Gosport, your time at Gosport. So, there was the initial training there. I guess you went back? Did you do Escape Training there as well?
Andy: Yeah, I did. So, SETT, I’m just think back to the preparation. I think I did it 3 times, doing SETT through various bits of my career.
Simon: How was that the first time? Sorry, you were going to say including.
Andy: As well as my Submarine time onboard an actual submarine, I then spent the latter half of my career I guess as an Officer doing sort of submarine design, working in places like Abbey Wood Procurement Agency, and then my last job in the Navy was doing Submarine Trials, so I was based here in Portsmouth, over in the Dock Yard, but I was responsible for bringing new sonars into service, and testing sort of existing sonars.
Simon: So that’s new equipment in to a submarine, checking it works?
Andy: Yeah, so it’s either new or testing, … I worked for a Trials Organisation, so we’d go away and if a submarine has been in Maintenance Period for a long time, maybe we had some new equipment fitted, then you’d do the Sea Trials or the Shore Trials initially. But because of that, I then needed to maintain my ability to go away on submarines, even though I wasn’t on an operational submarine. I’d go away on submarines, and do some …
Simon: You were still a Navy employee?
Andy: Yes absolutely, so I was still a qualified Submariner, and I had to maintain my submarine qualification ‘cos when I was away on submarine Sea Trials, then I was a qualified Submariner, not part of the Ship’s Company but I was there as a Trials Officer. And that’s still the same … slightly different in Industry now, not nowadays, but when I joined Qinetiq, I could be required to go on to a submarine and doing Submarine Trials. But yeah, I did the Deep Tank a few times.
Simon: With an Escape Suit I guess rather than free?
Andy: So, what you tended to do when you did the pressurised training in the suit, you would tend to do it from three depths. I can’t remember the depths were now. So, you’d do a shallow initially …
Simon: 9, 18 and …
Andy: Yeah, so initially you go at the surface. Again, the Instructors (laughs) … you put your head underwater and you practice blowing out, so literally they will hold you on the ladder, holding your head underwater and practice blowing out and they’ll teach you to blow out properly, ant that takes a bit of training. And then you’ll go out from mid-tank depth up to the surface without a suit, so you can do that with your head in water, and just blowing out and then ultimately you go down to the bottom chamber and you practice the sort of fleeting to the Escape Tower itself and then you go through the Escape Tower in the suit. It’s interesting, my day job now we still do … the company I work for, we still do, test Submarine Escape Suits, so in fact today I’ve just been in our Trainer, not quite a Trainer, it’s a Test Facility, for submarine escapes, so we still sort of see and remember the Submarine Escape Suits. But yeah, the first time is unique (laughs).
Simon: Trepidation beforehand?
Andy I don’t think so, not for me because I think because to get … it goes back to preparation to be there and being through the training and had the medicals to make sure you can clear your ears and all that kind if stuff, and there had been people going through the training with me who couldn’t clear their ears. In fact, people I’d served with at the start who couldn’t carry on as Submariners because they were Medically Discharged ‘cos they had problems and things, so the fact that I got through all that and I could … yeah I guess you still think back to the first time is clearing your ears with a nose clip on, and just blowing out and keeping ahead of the pressure. You do have to do that quickly, and people say, “Well if you don’t, your ears will sort themselves out” (laughs), so you make sure you do and again as you pop out when the hatch equalises, you pop out and I can’t remember exactly what you do now, it’s such a long time, but you’ve a Diver in the water, you’re 30 metres down and he’s there to check you’re alright. They check you’re alright and then off you go. But for me, I guess bits of trepidation because you always hear the stories of where it hasn’t gone as well as planned, so you know it’s hazardous, but you feel that the training and the Instructors around you are there for your best intent and they’re going to, even if you mess it up, they’re going to help you in whatever way that may be, but it’s for your best intent really. So, I think even the first, I thoroughly enjoyed it actually and I thought, ‘I’m getting paid to do this’ (laughs). It’s the best Fairground Ride I’ve ever been on.
116 minutes 43 seconds
Simon: That seems to be common thing. People saying it’s the best ride in Town.
Andy: Absolutely. It’s a shame other people can’t do it ‘cos it’s brilliant. Not only do I not have to pay to do it, I’m getting paid to do it, so it’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Simon: And what about Gosport generally? How much time did you spend around?
Andy: Not a lot to be honest. So, I guess when I was at Dolphin, in fact I mentioned getting married and joining my first submarine, or just before, our first Married Quarter was in Southsea, so I was based at Dolphin doing the rest of my training, and having done my Part 3, as a Weapon Engineer, you do your Weapon Engineering Training at Dolphin, so all the submarine related Weapons Training was at Dolphin. You go to Collingwood for a few bits but most of it is at Dolphin, so I was at Dolphin for a reasonable amount of time. We had a Married Quarter and the only one we could get was in Southsea, so we lived in Southsea in a flat overlooking the Solent, which was absolutely brilliant. We thought married life, this is it, ‘cos fortunately or unfortunately, there were no Married Quarters available for us, so we had to live in what we called an ‘Excess Rent Property’ so basically a flat. So, the Navy paid the rent for this flat which I think was on the 9th floor of a block of flats in Southsea. Absolutely brilliant. A young married … me and Tiffany early married, living in Southsea, people pay money to live in Southsea, and we were getting paid to live in Southsea, and my commute to work to Dolphin was literally cycle or walk to what was then HMS Vernon, that is now Gun Wharf Quays, and I get the boat from HMS Vernon, a pass boat …
Simon: You didn’t have to muck around with a Gosport Ferry?
Andy: No, it was a Navy boat, a pass boat from HMS Vernon across to HMS Dolphin, so I’d get that across from Vernon to Dolphin, and then work in Dolphin on courses or whatever, and then my commute home in the evening was the pass boat back to Vernon and then cycle or walk or whatever back home. It’s probably, I can’t remember the exact time, probably 12 months at the most, so I guess I didn’t really get to …’cos we never really lived over in Gosport. The fact that I was based in HMS Dolphin in Gosport, but I guess as a Submariner, you go for your runs ashore in Gosport but I guess I never really got to know Gosport that well.
Simon: Ok. You didn’t have a favourite Submariner’s Pub or a …
Andy: Well I guess the G and D is always the one, the George and Dragon that everyone goes to ‘cos it’s sort of walking … you come out of Dolphin, go over the Bridge and it’s the one straight opposite you, but I guess even as a Submariner’s run ashore, you tend to come out of Dolphin, go over the Bridge, go to the George and Dragon to start with, and then you’d probably get the Gosport Ferry across to Portsmouth and go into Portsmouth.
120 minutes 17 seconds
Simon: Did you ever experience Emma’s?
Andy: Emma’s? Yeah, absolutely, and everyone does. People went there and as I say, I guess it was the George and Dragon, if you were going to stay in Gosport, you’d go to Emma’s. If you’re not, you’d be over the water somewhere else in Portsmouth.
Simon: You’ve got a recollection of the carpet in Emma’s?
Andy: Well I guess probably not Emma’s. Definitely the sticky carpet in, what was it called … trying to think of in Southsea, it wasn’t Emma’s.
Simon: Josephine’s? was that something different?
Andy: No, not Josephine’s. My memory’s gone.
Simon: But it was a Night Club over in Southsea was it?
Andy: Yeah, it was a Night Club in Southsea. Not only did it have a sticky carpet, it had a dodgy palm tree as well.
Simon: What was dodgy about the palm tree?
Andy: Well, people used it for things. Unfortunately, when we couldn’t quite get to the Gents, people thought it was a good idea to water the palm tree, so you didn’t want to go anywhere near the palm tree. Joanna’s that was it. Joanna’s.
Simon: Right. Whereabouts was Joanna’s then?
Andy: Opposite the Southsea Pier. So, on the other side, it’s now … in fact I haven’t been over to Southsea for a long time, but it was basically in that kind of area, Southsea Pier on the corner.
Simon: So, after the submarine being on active service, you were then land based?
Andy: Yes, so I finished my time on Torbay at the time, and my last two jobs in the Service. In fact, after Torbay, I went up and did an MSc, so a Masters in Guided Weapons so I was sent away to Shrivenham for a year, and then my last two jobs in the Service, one was in Abbey Wood, which is the Procurement Agency and I was a Combat System Manager for a future submarine design, so I did sort of 3 years in Abbey Wood and then literally ‘cos I was coming to the planned end of my career, my last job in the Service was down here doing Submarine Trials and that was a mix of doing Shore Based stuff, so Trials in Shore Facilities, doing Trials onboard submarines alongside, or in various places, and then going away and doing Submarine Sea Trials from a sonar perspective, checking Submarine Systems onboard, so it was a mix of all that.
Simon: Ok. And so, the end of your Navy time, you’d decided that that was going to be the time for an end. Is that because you were there for a set number of years or …?
Andy: No, I guess it is a whole another story I guess, about my decision to leave, but it was multiple factors. One of the driving ones was my age. Going back to the question about is it time related, yes it sort of was but there wasn’t a specification to the time, but as an Officer, once you’ve done 16 years from the age of 21, at the age of 37 as an Officer you are immediately pensionable, so a pension as soon as you leave, and what you tend to find is either Officers will leave close to that, so it’s early, but you’ve done at least 16 years in if you’ve served from 21, and I had. I’d done closer to 20 years serving ‘cos of my surface ship time before that as well, or you find people will sort of retire later, so for me it was a conscious decision, multiple things. A, 37 was quite close, so it was timely and the fact that as a family, me and Tiffany had said, “That’s it, it’s time to have a family” and it was a mix of the two. And I said earlier that people that I’d served with, some had bantered around, not being around when John or Julie or whoever it is was growing up, and some had regretted that with a great deal of regret by definition, and I thought, “I don’t want to do that.” We’d decided on a family, we’d spent as a married couple bouncing around every couple of years and had enough of that. We’d done that, we’d ticked that box of life, said no, we’re going to have a family now, and I’m going to get a job, so we did all of that. Left the Navy, got a different job. Moved into this house actually, and had our son Owen, all in about 3 months of each other.
125 minutes 33 seconds
Simon: Yikes! That’s 3 changes.
Andy: So the 3 most stressful things you can do (laughs). We did it all at once. That’s my Submarine Training (laughs). And again, the good thing for me is I’m still certain now, I made the right decision for us as a family and for me as a Professional, absolutely thoroughly enjoyed and still enthusiastic about my submarine time and loved every minute of it, but glad that I left when I did. It was the right thing for me and the good thing for me I guess professionally is that I’ve continued to work with submarines, in and for submarines ever since. Yes, I might have had a … compared to some people a relatively short period in an actual submarine and on submarines, but I’ve been working in and around submarines for since the late ‘90s.
Simon And was it easy to find a role in the …?
Andy: I guess it’s one of the things when you leave, you either try and do what you enjoy, and move to wherever that is, or try something different and I guess for us, you know we were … in fact when I was leaving, in fact we were based in Plymouth, so based on a submarine down there, and then coming in to … we then moved from Plymouth to Taunton, so we spent most of our time down the south west, so we had no real ties to anywhere, so one of the sort of considerations for leaving was we could have gone anywhere. The jobs could be anywhere and it’s interesting to sort of talk … I mentioned I’d done Trials based here in Portsmouth. Worked a lot with submarine sonars, and there was opportunities in Manchester, which is where I’d grown up just north of Manchester so we joked about it and said, “Am I going to go back up north? Come on, let’s go north” and we did. We investigated house prices, where do we want to go, go back to the south west, stay here, and again, long story short, we ended up deciding on round here and getting a job for Qinetiq. And interestingly, was it a plan? Working for a Defence Company, in fact my first job for Qinetiq was doing surface ship related stuff ‘cos as an Engineer, I got recruited in I guess because of my service background and I ended up doing sort of surface ship work, very similar to my time in the surface ship. “I don’t want to do this, I want to go back to submarines” so within about a year of joining Qinetiq, I’d said to various people, I’d said, “I can do this but I want to get back to submarines” and pretty much ever since the end of the first year when I was doing other stuff, and I continue to this day, to work in submarine related business and my day job is running a big submarine related program of work. I guess I consider myself now even no longer serving in submarines, my day job is to still serve in submarines because the work that we do from my company now. I’ve got to think every day, the end user is, and I’ve been that end user. I still think now, you can take the person out of the north, you can’t take north out of the person. You can take me out of the Navy. I still talk to colleagues, you know I spent 20 years in the Navy, so I guess if you cut my arm you’ll probably see whatever colour blood it is, it’s such an informative or formative part of my time and submarines as well. And I still think now, yes I work for Qinetiq, but I’m a Submariner and still am and still will be, will always be, and enjoy it.
Simon: So, if you were to advise people, obviously if you go into schools, I guess you’re going in there saying, “Submarines are great” (laughs).
Andy: Absolutely. And if you want a career, not just in Engineering. If you want a long-standing career with stability and consistency, what more could you want that in being involved in submarines? Because a) they’re going to be around for a long time, even if, the same with people at work, even if whatever Government’s in power at the time, even if the answer is “Right, we’re going to stop submarines today” and it never will be, but even if, let’s play that one out. Stop submarines today, we’re still going to have submarines, nuclear submarines for at least another 30-40-50 years, so it might not what you want to be involved in, but even if the Government said, “We’re going to cancel submarines as of today”, well you can be involved in submarine disposal for the next 40 years, and as an Engineer, that’s something you might want to be involved in. So, in terms of Engineering, and it’s not just Engineering, but being involved in the submarine … everyone talks about it as a Submarine Enterprise, being a part of the Submarine Enterprise, the submarine family of which the one onboard is a microcosm of everything else that exists out in Industry as well, is just … I just can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t want to do it, because it’s going to be there forever. It’s an enormous challenge, it’s an enormous privilege, but yeah, why wouldn’t you want to do it? The only reason I think people don’t want to do it is ‘cos they don’t realise what it is.
Simon: Well I mean like most of the population I didn’t really know anything about submarines before starting this, and it is endlessly fascinating.
Andy: Yes, and interestingly, when I joined Qinetiq, one of the things that I wanted to do when I took over a bit of business, is make sure people realise what’s going on, and we ended up, not recruiting but employing, contracting an external Marketing Agency, and the guy who came and sat with me, same sort of thing. So he had no background in submarines, I said, “This is what we do. “Wow, wow, wow” and I say he was sitting with us but he was with us for probably about 9 months, maybe up to a year, bouncing around different bits of the business, but I remember eventually he sort of went on to do something else, and I was talking to him towards the end of it and he said, “Andy, as a Marketeer” he said, “Absolutely gob-smacked. I just didn’t realise this …” ‘cos everyone says, “Oh, he can’t tell you about that” but the reality is you can talk about a hell of a lot of it. But again, you’re absolutely right, in terms of societal understanding of what happens in submarines and the Submarine Industry in the UK and how big it is and how important it is, even in Gosport … I was talking to a … I don’t know if you were interviewing him for this, a colleague in the Office today, an ex-Submariner, in fact he Captained a submarine, and he was born and bred in Gosport, in Alverstoke down there, and in fact we had … in fact at the weekend, as an Engineer, I mentioned that I did my Engineering Training at Manadon, in Plymouth, and that’s where when I was going through all the Engineers went to Manadon, so we had a reunion this weekend for Manadon Engineers, and as part of that ‘cos I work literally just down the road in Gosport, is that we got a few people from the Reunion to come on to our site and show them what we do. Because, yes, there’s lots that’s quite sensitive, including when we do work for things like the America’s Cup Teams, so they’re just as sensitive with their data as the Navy, so when we’re doing stuff for them, so we’ve got people coming in to the Facility but one of the things we’ve said is that you know, most of the people in Gosport have got no idea what went on in Dolphin other than if you’re in a submarine family. If your dad was a Submariner or I guess nowadays, your mum, then they’ll probably talk about it, but to everyone else it’s a bit of an unknown. And I guess the good bit … again you can look on the Internet now, the Navy has I guess recognised that challenge and started to put advertising media out there and getting better at it, but I guess there is still a degree of sensitivity and it’s the ‘Secret Service’, can’t tell you about this. And there is lots that you can’t tell you about, but as an Engineer, I can tell you about most of the things that you do onboard and in fact one of the things I do, I go in to local schools, you mentioned earlier about sonar. I talk to them about sonar because what they’re trying to do in the school in fact working with the Teachers, is what they want to do is translate what they’re learning in Physics and Maths in to real world. In fact, one of the local schools here, has got a big push to try and make what they’re doing relevant in the real world and one of their modules they do is an hour that Teachers do on sonar, and then I go in as an ex-Submariner and talk to them about well what do we use sonar actually for and again you can talk a lot about things that you can do with sonar and it’s fascinating. The kind of things 10,11,12-year-olds will ask you about sonar and the truth and the myths and rumours and things, so no, it’s good.
136 minutes 29 seconds
Simon: That education side of making it … I think that’s why a lot of people get stuck with education it just seems theoretical doesn’t it?
Andy: Yeah absolutely.
Simon: So, by making it real.
Andy: And that’s what you’re try and do. I guess as a Submariner you’re trying to do that all the time. You say yes, there’s lots that’s sensitive and I can’t tell you about it, but actually if you get in to it … and that’s why I say I do take my hat off to the Navy that you can Google them, Submariners, You Tube, there’s loads of You Tube stuff out there now, including female Submariners now.
Simon: Including what?
Andy: Female Submariners, so there’s plenty of stuff on You Tube now about young ladies who became Submariners or are Submariners.
Simon: I have to interview … there’s a couple that are being lined up.
Andy: Yeah, absolutely, and that’s a good move forward. It’s brilliant now that whereas I guess the old and bald would say, “You wouldn’t have women on submarines” but you can now and that opens it up to … ‘cos reality is for the kind of stuff that I talked about, as an Engineer or ultimately as a Commanding Officer, there’s absolutely no reason why a female Submariner can’t do that.
Simon: Is there something about … something you’d done in your career that enabled female Submariners to be onboard?
Andy: So, the Company that I work for, I guess we don’t manufacture …
Simon: Atmosphere Control Equipment?
Andy: Yeah, Atmosphere Control Equipment, so yes, we’ve made the equipment that goes onboard that allows females to serve in submarines.
Simon: What does that do then?
Andy: So, interestingly, the myth and rumour around … again women or females serving in submarines isn’t unique around the world, so if you look at different submarine operating nations, quite a few have women serving in submarines. There aren’t many nuclear submarine operating nations but the one thing that was limiting the ability for women to serve at sea in Royal Navy Submarines, the myth and rumour was it was about the nuclear reactor, but it’s nothing to do with … well indirectly related to the reactor, but it was the fact that you can be away for a long time and if you get a female Submariner who doesn’t know that she’s pregnant on Day 1 of a Patrol, as could be the case, but finds out she’s pregnant a week into the Patrol, then you might be in a situation where you can’t come back because you can’t just easily turn around, so there might be a situation where you have to stay onboard ultimately for a couple of months longer. Now one of the things in terms of physiologically, ironically one of the things it can impact the unborn foetus is the air that you’re breathing. Now, high levels of carbon dioxide, can potentially impact an unborn foetus, so what you’ve got to be able to make sure is in that scenario, where you’ve got a female onboard a submarine and you’ve got to stay onboard, every effort will be made to try and get her off in you’re in that scenario, but there is a risk that you have to stay on for some time afterwards. What you’ve got to be able to do is give high confidence that the atmosphere onboard, particularly you know, things like CO2, aren’t going to get above an unacceptable atmosphere. Now, 99% of the time, a high % of the time, the normal atmosphere on a submarine is absolutely good enough to breathe for everyone and it’s actually better than a normal atmosphere, but there could be an incident onboard that means that the normal Atmosphere Control Equipment maybe breaks down or whatever you get an incident onboard, so you could end up in a situation where you get higher levels than you would want, of things like carbon dioxide. Now, for male Submariners that means you get a headache, so you can live with that kind of higher than normal levels of CO2 for a short period, and there’s definitions of how long that period can be, but for a female Submariner, then you can’t accept, so what we had to be able to do is provide an area onboard where in the unlikely event that the rest of the submarine atmosphere has what we call gone out of spec, then you provide an atmosphere in a small area for the female Submariner whose finds out she’s pregnant, to maintain a viable atmosphere. So, basically what we have to be able to do is …
141 minutes 43 seconds
Simon: If you can’t control the whole of the …
Andy: If you can’t control the … well, you can, normal operations are …
Simon: In the situations that you couldn’t, at least you keep one area …
Andy: So, you keep a small area with carefully managed levels of CO2 as the driver. So, we, Qinetiq, produce that equipment, and ultimately that equipment is the one that as of today, allows women to serve, thankfully touch wood, if we can find any, they’ve never had to use it, because the reality is the normal Atmosphere Equipment manages CO2 to an appropriate degree. As I say, I’ve been out of the Navy for quite a while now, but I’m not aware there’s been any evidence of a female Submariner going to sea and finding out a week later that she’s pregnant.
Simon: I mean that’s interesting. It’s good that those allowances are thought of and acted on and obviously budgets spent, to make sure 1, the female Submariner’s pregnant, 2 there was a problem with the air that there is … I mean considerate is the wrong word but …
Andy: Well it is, and I guess ultimately it’s about a duty of care and the reality a submarine is a work environment and I guess the Royal Navy as the employer of those people that go to sea in submarines does have and recognise and live up to the duty of care to those Submariners. Which is why it is important and is taken seriously and recognised as important. The reality is that duty of care doesn’t end quickly, because things like Submariners that have served a long time ago, that duty of care goes on for ever effectively. Not my Submariner story, my dad served in the Air Force in Christmas Island when they were doing the nuclear test, and he was out there and some of his friends did end up with cancer, but that’s the MOD’s duty of care for people in that kind of … and I guess the same is true of a Submariner, you know operating in a submarine for a period of time, you know the MOD and I think they do a good job of recognising that it’s important and you’ve got to take it seriously. There’s swings and roundabouts there isn’t there, because historically people say, “You’ve got to allow women to serve at sea in submarines.” “Well not yet, because …” and again the bit that people don’t always put the argument forward and say, “No, the reason why they’re not serving in submarines, doesn’t mean they can’t do the job, but at the moment there isn’t the environment that would make it safe for them to do the job, so once you get an environment that makes it safe for them, absolutely.” Again, the classic thing for a submarine in general is, it goes back to Day 1 of understanding what a submarine is, it’s all about safety, it’s all about duty of care.
Simon: Great. Well, you’ve been very generous with your time.
Andy: I was going to say that’s a bit longer than an hour, but we’ve obviously talked a bit, so as long as it’s answered your questions.
Simon: What have I not asked you about that I should have asked you about do you think?
Andy: I don’t think much really, I think we’ve covered most of it really. I can’t think of … sort of scribbles notes down. No, I think it’s my sort submarine time. We’ve talked about my time in Qinetiq, still doing submarine stuff. I can’t think of anything much (laughs).
Simon: Great. Well, thank you very much for your time.
Andy: If you think when you leave here, I wish I’d asked him that, please feel free to come back and ask.
Simon: Ok. Thank you.
Andy Alright.
Interview ends
146 minutes 10 seconds
Transcribed May 2022
