Chris Groves – Selection process for Submarine Service

Well, ideally if there were more candidates than places, there would be a selection process, but traditionally the Submarine Service has had to take non-volunteers to make sure they can fill all the spaces.

That’s not the case now in actual fact. It’s become significantly easier to recruit Submariners and we recruit them directly into the Submarine Service before they join the Royal Navy, whereas when I joined, you joined the Royal Navy as what was called a ‘Seaman Officer’ now called a ‘Warfare Officer’ and you then split into sub-specialisation at a later date which you could then choose, or if it was a shortage category, it might be chosen for you.

So, quite often that was the case in Submarine Service then, but I was a volunteer, so they take volunteers over pressed men so that was the way it ended up.