Colin Clarke – Time spent on Perisher
And my best memory really was I think the second one we did, we spent a month on Perisher, so this is the Submarine Command Course where we’re training the next generation of Submarine Captains, and it was always done on diesel submarines before you would go to a nuclear submarine and it was actually, just to finish this bit of the story, when I was on HMS Trafalgar, my first Captain on HMS Trafalgar was the very first Submarine Captain who had not served on a diesel submarine, so just getting to that generation by then, but we were, I think it was us and HMS Otus at the time, so there were two diesel submarines doing the Perisher what was back in its usual haunt back then around the Isle of Arran and Rothesay, up the north-west of Scotland there.
We used to get a mix of students back then, not just the UK students, but also Dutch, Norwegian, occasionally an Australian or a Canadian sort of student as well. And they’d all take it in turns over a course of a number of months, so a lot of shoreside training, then slowly they get to sea and then they get to actually take over the submarine and do various attack and drills and procedures as if they were the actual Captain.
So, they would be called the Duty Captain at that period of time and then the Instructor was known as Teacher.
He was teaching his students, so he was always called Teacher, and then the Captains, the Duty Captain if they had the submarine at that time.
But the submarine’s actual Captain always had submarine safety and control at any time as well, so he could instantly come out and if he was unhappy with anything, he’d just go, “Captain has command” and then all the focus is back on him, not the Duty Captain.
But generally speaking, I don’t ever recall that happening, unless Teacher, ‘cos he used to sleep as well, he’d given his teaching duties to the actual Captain of the submarine. So, very often, certainly in the early days, you’d see Teachers take back control of the submarine, because the Duty Captain is not getting it right yet.
There’s a safety issue potentially in the offing, so that’s kind of how that sort of played out.